Eclipse IDE is a widely known IDE that offers various packages for development in different languages and for different platforms. You can use it for writing Kotlin code. On this page, you will learn how to get started with Kotlin in Eclipse IDE.
First of all, you need the Eclipse IDE installed on your system. You can download its latest version from download page. The Eclipse IDE for Java Developers bundle is recommended.
To add the Kotlin support to your Eclipse IDE, install the Kotlin Plugin for Eclipse. We recommend installing the Kotlin plugin from Eclipse Marketplace. Open the Help | Eclipse Marketplace... menu and search for Kotlin Plugin for Eclipse:
Once the plugin is installed and Eclipse is restarted, make sure the plugin is installed correctly: open the Kotlin perspective in the menu Window | Perspective | Open Perspective | Other...
Now you are ready to create a new Kotlin project.
First, select File | New | Kotlin Project.
An empty Kotlin/JVM project will be created.
For Eclipse IDE, the project is also a Java project but configured with Kotlin nature, meaning it has the Kotlin Builder and reference to the Kotlin Runtime Library. Great thing about this solution is that you can add both Kotlin and Java code to the same project.
The project structure looks like this:
Now, create a new Kotlin file in the source directory.
You can enter the name without the .kt
extension. Eclipse will add it automatically.
Once you have a source file, add the main
function - the entry point to a Kotlin application. You
can simply type main
and invoke code completion by hitting Ctrl + Space
.
Finally, add a simple line of Kotlin code to print a message:
To run the application, right-click somewhere in the main file and select Run As | Kotlin Application.
If everything went well, you'll see the result in the Console window.
Congratulations! You now have your Kotlin application running in Eclipse IDE.