Integrating COTS Search Engines into Eclipse: Google Desktop Case Study

The paper presents an integration of the Google desktop search (GDS) engine into the eclipse development environment. The resulting tool, namely Google eclipse search (GES), provides enhanced searching in eclipse software projects. The paper advocates for a COTS component-based approach to develop useful and reliable research prototypes, which support various software maintenance tasks. The development effort for such the tools is reduced, while customization and flexibility, to fully support the needs of developers, is maintained. The proposed solution takes advantages of the power of GDS for quick and accurate searching and of eclipse for great extensibility. The paper outlines our experiences of integrating GDS engine into eclipse as well as possible extensions and applications of the proposed tool.