diff --git a/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix
index 686ec3681183..99ac442d5cb1 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix
@@ -6,10 +6,9 @@
 , callPackage
 }:
 
-# https://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ is the main place to
-# find the downloads needed for new versions
+# use ./update.sh to help with updating for each quarterly release
 #
-# to test:
+# then, to test:
 # for e in cpp modeling platform sdk java jee committers rcp; do for s in pkgs pkgsCross.aarch64-multiplatform; do echo; echo $s $e; nix build -f default.nix ${s}.eclipses.eclipse-${e} -o eclipse-${s}-${e}; done; done
 
 let
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/update.sh b/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/update.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..7e100ccfbcd7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/update.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env nix-shell
+#! nix-shell -i bash --pure -p curl cacert libxml2 yq nix jq
+#! nix-shell -I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/3c7487575d9445185249a159046cc02ff364bff8.tar.gz
+#                                                                ^
+#                                                                |
+#                   nixos-unstable ~ 2023-07-06 -----------------/
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+
+# scrape the downloads page for release info
+
+curl -s -o eclipse-dl.html https://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/
+trap "rm eclipse-dl.html" EXIT
+
+dlquery() {
+    q=$1
+    xmllint --html eclipse-dl.html --xmlout 2>/dev/null | xq -r ".html.body.main.div.table[3].tr[1].td[0].a${q}";
+}
+
+# extract release info from download page HTML
+
+platform_major=$(dlquery '."#text" | split(".") | .[0]' -r);
+platform_minor=$(dlquery '."#text" | split(".") | .[1]' -r);
+
+year=$(dlquery '."@href" | split("/") | .[] | select(. | startswith("R")) | split("-") | .[2] | .[0:4]')
+buildmonth=$(dlquery '."@href" | split("/") | .[] | select(. | startswith("R")) | split("-") | .[2] | .[4:6]')
+builddaytime=$(dlquery '."@href" | split("/") | .[] | select(. | startswith("R")) | split("-") | .[2] | .[6:12]')
+timestamp="${year}${buildmonth}${builddaytime}";
+
+# account for possible release-month vs. build-month mismatches
+
+month=$buildmonth;
+case "$buildmonth" in
+    '02'|'04') month='03' ;;
+    '05'|'07') month='06' ;;
+    '08'|'10') month='09' ;;
+    '11'|'01') month='12' ;;
+esac
+
+cat <<EOF
+
+paste the following into the 'let' block near the top of pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix:
+
+  platform_major = "${platform_major}";
+  platform_minor = "${platform_minor}";
+  year = "${year}";
+  month = "${month}"; #release month
+  buildmonth = "${buildmonth}"; #sometimes differs from release month
+  timestamp = "\${year}\${buildmonth}${builddaytime}";
+EOF
+
+# strip existing download hashes
+
+sed -i 's/64 = ".*";$/64 = "";/g' pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix
+
+# prefetch new download hashes
+
+echo;
+echo "paste the following url + hash blocks into pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix:";
+
+for u in $(grep 'url = ' pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse/default.nix | grep arch | cut -d '"' -f 2 | sed 's/&/\\&/g'); do
+    echo;
+    echo "        url = \"${u}\";";
+    echo "        hash = {";
+    for arch in x86_64 aarch64; do
+        us=$(eval echo "$u");
+        h=$(nix store prefetch-file --json "$us" | jq -r .hash);
+        echo "          $arch = \"${h}\";";
+    done
+    echo '        }.${arch};';
+done