patching features with included and required features

[gireeshpunathil]

I have a question on feature patches. I could not find enough information on this in the eclipse docs (the best I got is this: https://help.eclipse.org/latest/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.pde.doc.user%2Fguide%2Ftools%2Ffile_wizards%2Fnew_product_config.htm), live debugging gave me inconclusive results that drove me crazy, so I thought will ask here.

I have a feature (A) which includes other features (B) as well as it has dependencies (C) on other features (includes and requires verbs). when I develop a patch for this feature:

• (1) I want to make sure the included features and / or the dependent features are patch-able too.
• (2) In some cases, I will actually be needing to patch only the included or dependent features.

so to achieve these, should I replicate the inter-relations of A with B and C in the patch's feature.xml (the includes and requires sections)?

• if I don't, I cannot achieve (1) and (2) above, as B and C are not user-visible features, so those are not listed in the p2's update discovery service?
• if I do, what would be the steps? my attempts to do this took me nowhere! is there a doc that I can read?

thanks in advance!

[gireeshpunathil]

the actual problem I am facing is the base sdk itself. The entries with an > icon are top level features with sub-features included. Those included features cannot be patched, as those are not root IUs in the first place.

what works:

• brute force patching (swapping in the plugins folder)
• install s/w and selecting the patch

what does not work:

• check for updates does not discover even when there is a patch

I think it will work if we patch the outer feature along with the inner ones, but just that we may not have a way to do that?