If you install Eclipse on OS/X and then install the Subclipse plug-in, you might be surprised to see an error about missing JavaHL bindings for Subversion.

Subclipse uses the official Java to C bindings provided by the Subversion team. On OS/X these aren’t installed by default. If you use Homebrew to install open source software on OS/X (and I highly recommend it), then just installing Subversion won’t give them to you either.

So, to install Subversion using Homebrew and get the JavaHL bindings necessary for Subclipse, use this line:

brew install --universal --java subversion

This will create the 32 and 64 bit versions (—universal) and the JavaHL bindings (—java). So, regardless of whether you’re running Eclipse in 32-bit or 64-bit you should have the appropriate JavaHL bindings.

When Homebrew finishes building Subversion and the JavaHL bindings it will display this:

You may need to link the Java bindings into the Java Extensions folder:
  sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib /Library/Java/Extensions

There’s no “you may” about it. Go ahead and run the sudo command. That will place the link to the JavaHL bindings in the OS/X Java extension library. Now Subclipse should automatically start working. You don’t even need to restart Eclipse if you had it running.