Embed and extend PDI functionality
You may want to develop custom plugins to extend Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) functionality or to embed the PDI engine into your own Java applications. To aid experienced Java developers, we provide Java classes and methods, as well as sample Eclipse-based projects with detailed code-level documentation. These instructions will show you how to approach your plugin project. We recommended that you open the related sample project and follow along.
When reading these instructions, we recommended that you open the related sample project and follow along. This article provides Java classes and methods, as well as sample Eclipse-based projects with detailed code-level documentation.
Get started with the sample PDI project
This project is for experienced Java developers who want to create customized PDI plugins. To help you get started, we provide a sample Eclipse-based project with detailed code-level documentation for:
- Extending Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) functionality
- Embedding the PDI engine into your own Java applications
Download the sample project
The sample PDI project file is distributed in a ZIP file named kettle-sdk-plugin-assembly-8.2.0.0-342.zip
Click the following link to download the sample project: kettle-sdk-plugin-assembly-8.2.0.0-342.zip
Set up a development environment
We recommend adapting the sample PDI project to your development environment. The sample PDI project comes preconfigured as an Eclipse project, complete with dependencies to a stable release of PDI. If you are developing for a specific version of PDI, you must replace the dependency JAR files to match your version of PDI. The PDI classes and methods are stable for any major version of PDI, so you can safely replace the JAR files and develop for any PDI 9.x release.
Get PDI sources
When developing with PDI (also known as the Kettle project to the open source community), it is helpful to have the Kettle sources close by. Including them in development projects makes it possible to trace and step through core PDI code, which helps when debugging your solution.
PDI source code is publicly available from the Pentaho GitHub repository at https://github.com/pentaho/pentaho-kettle.
PDI follows the standard project layout for GitHub repositories. The version currently in development is hosted in the trunk folder, patch branches are hosted in the branch folders, and released versions are tagged in the tags folder.
If you are developing for a specific version of PDI, for instance , it is important to check-out or export the corresponding tag. To check which version you need to match your installation, select from the PDI client menu.
The Build version shows you which tag to use to match your installation.
Attach source to PDI JAR files
If you checked out PDI sources, you may want to associate the source to the matching PDI JAR files against which you are compiling your plugin. This optional step may improve the debugging experience, as it allows you to trace into PDI core code.
Additional developer documentation
Javadoc
The javadoc documentation reflects the most recent stable release of PDI and is available at http://community.pentaho.com/javadoc/.
Pentaho PDI Community Wiki
Additional developer documentation is available in the PDI community wiki: Pentaho PDI Community Wiki. The “Documentation for (Java) Developers" section has additional information for extending PDI with plugins or embedding the PDI engine.
Embed Pentaho Data Integration
Build and run transformation and jobs in other applications.
Extend Pentaho Data Integration
Develop custom plugins to extend the standard PDI functionality.