sbt: set the base-directory of a remote RootProject - scala

Question

Disclaimer: I am new to sbt and Scala so I might be missing obvious things.
My objective here is to use the Scala compiler as a library from my main project. I was initially doing that by manually placing the scala jars in a libs directory in my project and then including that dir in my classpath. Note that at the time I wasn't using sbt. Now, I want to use sbt and also download the scala sources from github, build the scala jars and then build my project. I start by creating 2 directories: myProject and myProject/project. I then create the following 4 files:
The sbt version file:
// File 1: project/build.properties
sbt.version=0.13.17
The plugins file (not relevant to this question):
// File 2: project/plugins.sbt
addSbtPlugin("com.eed3si9n" % "sbt-buildinfo" % "0.7.0")
The build.sbt file:
// File 3: build.sbt
lazy val root = (project in file(".")).
settings(
inThisBuild(List(
organization := "me",
scalaVersion := "2.11.12",
version := "0.1.0-SNAPSHOT"
)),
name := "a name"
).dependsOn(ScalaDep)
lazy val ScalaDep = RootProject(uri("https://github.com/scala/scala.git"))
My source file:
// File 4: Test.scala
import scala.tools.nsc.MainClass
object Test extends App {
println("Hello World !")
}
If I run sbt inside myProject then sbt will download the scala sources from github and then try to compile them. The problem is that the base-directory is still myProject. This means that if the scala sbt source files refer to something that is in the scala base-directory they won't find it. For example, the scala/project/VersionUtil.scala file tries to open the scala/versions.properties file that lies in the scala base-directory.
Question: How can I set sbt to download a github repo and then build it using that project's base-directory instead of mine's (by that I mean the base-directory of myProject in the above example) ??
Hope that makes sense.
I would really appreciate any feedback on this.
Thanks in advance !

Answer 1

In the Scala ecosystem you usually depend on binary artifacts (libraries) that are published in Maven or Ivy repositories. Virtually all Scala projects publish binaries, including the compiler. So all you have to do is add the line below to your project settings:
libraryDependencies += "org.scala-lang" % "scala-compiler" % scalaVersion.value
dependsOn is used for dependencies between sub-projects in the same build.
For browsing sources you could use an IDE. IntelliJ IDEA can readily import Sbt projects and download/attach sources for library dependencies. Eclipse has an Sbt plugin that does the same. Ensime also, etc. Or just git clone the repository.