Issue
After importing an Eclipse project from a cloned git repository, I make some changes and commit - and wtf? I get a ".git" folder added to the project, the whole shebang with the heads and refs and worst of all the whole object database gets added to the project, all files/folders having that little question-mark icon signaling that the files have not been added / are not yet tracked by git. This .git folder exists in the actual Working Directory (how does that even make sense?). You can imagine what an annoyance this causes when trying to use the "Synchronize" tool/view (which is supposed to make life easier for committing, you can see all the changes and changed files and diffs).
Question (tl;dr)
How to correctly import an Eclipse project from a cloned git repository? I don't want a .git folder showing up in "Team > Synchronize" when I commit, let the .git folder reside somewhere else outside of my project.
Additional Info
I'm on Windows 7 using Eclipse Indigo and Egit.
I am using Egit to clone a git repo from http://git.apache.org/ (the ofbiz project, to be exact) and in the wizard I choose the option to import an existing project from this newly cloned repo.
Yes I am aware of how little I may expect from Egit. In fact, if there are any alternative ways (external git tool? command line git for windows? other?) to use a git-tracked project in Eclipse which keeps the actual .git stuff out of the project, i'd gladly abandon Egit.
When you clone a git repository, the default behavior is to create a .git folder inside the root of the local clone. You can change the default behavior by setting the GIT_DIR variable:
Git docs says:
"GIT_DIR
If the GIT_DIR environment variable is set then it specifies a path to use instead of the default .git for the base of the repository."
Depending on which terminal you use, you could set it using setenv or export.
For example in a bash terminal:
export GIT_DIR='[path_to_git_directory]'
After setting the variable, you should be able to clone and the .git directory should show up at the specified directory.
I totally agree - I can't imagine it would ever be anyones intent to commit the .git folder!
And git/EGit knows that this is the repository folder of the project, so it should be easy to implement the appropriate exception - so that this folder does not become part of the synchronization.
I know the following does not solve your problem, but in cases where you control the way files are layed out in the repository, you could choose to have the Eclipse project folder not be the root folder of the repository, but rather a sub-folder.
This also allows you to have stuff in the repository that should not show up in Eclipse, or even have multiple Eclipse projects grouped in one repository (if you should wish to do so).
Related
I have a git repo that has a lot of test scripts in it. I started by setting this repo as my "workspace" in eclipse so I could make changes directly with eclipse and then just push them up to bitbucket once they are done.
Eclipse wont let me do this, I cant see anything in my work space and when I try to import the local repo to the workspace it tells me "Can't import project MavenTest from an existing workspace folder"
This doesn't make sense to me since I would have to make a separate workspace from my repo and then do the work into the workspace and manually copy it to the local repo and then push it up to bitbucket. Also pulling everything down will be a pain too since I'll have to copy any changes to my workspace. I defeats the whole purpose of version control.
Can someone please explain to me what I am doing wrong? I just want to work, push and pull all in the same directory.
Eclipse expects everything at the top level of its workspace directory to be a project, or otherwise content written by a plug-in through Eclipse's APIs. Any other content in the repository will be unusable and not importable as its location already overlaps the location of the workspace.
I would have to make a separate workspace from my repo and then do the work into the workspace and manually copy it to the local repo and then push it up to bitbucket.
Wrong. You're under the misconception that everything shown in the workspace has to physically live under the workspace directory, which is very untrue. They don't have to be there, they don't even have to be physical files.
Typically you will make Eclipse aware of the local clone using its Git Repositories View, and then use the view's context menus to import content from the repository's working directory as projects in the workspace (or using a Maven wizard provided through M2E). This import will not duplicate anything. You will still have one canonical location for your sources: your repository.
https://wiki.eclipse.org/EGit/User_Guide#Creating_Repositories
I used computer A via the Terminal to create a) create a git repository, b) add an index.html file to the repo, c) add a remote origin, d) push to the remote origin. All OK.
Then, i used computer B to clone that repository via Terminal. Then, I opened Eclipse (equipped with Egit), and created a new project in the folder that was created by the cloning process. Then I used Eclipse to push any changes to the remote origin.
Returning to computer A, I used Eclipse to create a project in the original repo folder, and then I attempted to pull from the remote origin, in order to get the changes that were pushed when using computer B.
Eclipse will not do it. It complains the I have items such as .settings, .project and similar and since they are not under version control it won't overwrite them by fetching files from the server. I had to manually delete those files (via Terminal) and then Eclipse worked as expected.
Please provide information on how to avoid this.
Should I create the local repo from within Eclipse and then push it to the remote origin, so that items such as (.settings) are under version control and (if so) how would that cause trouble to people cloning the repo and use different versions of Eclipse?
Should I gitignore those items?
Should I ask Eclipse to save its own affiliated files to another folder (not that i am aware how to do that, i only know that NetBeans does it)?
Looks like you didn't gitignored eclipse files.
Probably, when you commit/push via egit, you also commit and push those files you already had unversioned in your machine A, so git complains, because you are asking to override existing unversioned files.
I strongly recommend you to gitignore those eclipse files. You can see examples of .gitignore files in the github gitignore repo.
Hope it helps.
It complains because if you pull the changes from your remote it will overwrite your local files. That is the problem. The other answerer has right. You should better add all the eclipse project files and and target .settings and classpath to gitignore. You can use a global gitignore for your computers as well, before creating projects. You could use maven for example, then you can import your projects only from the pom.xml-s given in the git repository.
I use them the same. Egit and other guis are a bit too complex to work with. Git repositories can get easy in an inconsistent state where you should use the oldfashioned terminal to solve things. Like, rebasing, merging on conflicts. Gits learning curve is solid.
Now you can solve your problem if on the first computer save a backup of your original and clones your project later, after fixed it on the second. On the second git remove all this files, but use the --cached option to avoid deleting them. Before you do it so, check the help of git remove! after you have done this, put them into the .gitignore as filenames with wildcards. You can also use a global gitignore file in your user folder. Creating a .gitconfig file where you can specifiy the global ignore with the following :
[core]
excludesfile = ~/.gitignore_global
Than just create the .gitignore_global like this :
/nbproject
/bin
/build.xml
.idea
chess.iml
target/
bin
( This file is for idea and netbeans. you can add eclipse project files here )
You can have .gitignore files per project too. You can commit them to the repository, so on the next machine you do not have to do this again. The nicest way I think is having a dotfiles git repository, which is a git repo of your home directory and the dotfiles in it. I also use it for different windows and linux distros.
That's all. You should keep all of your configuration in a safe place. And source code management can do it. But do not commit private stuff to public a place! ;)
Oh I wanted to mention that, you can also have a .gitignore entry in your .gitignore file. That can be very useful when you do not want to touch a repository but need to add a gitignore to hide some stuff especially from the given repo.
I'm trying to setup a git repository for my Eclipse project using EGit. However, I'm having trouble excluding the root/project directory from the repository. That being, my project has the structure:
ProjectDirectory
src
war
etc
I would like the repository to contain src, war, and etc, but not contain the parent directory ProjectDirectory. That's because if I want to clone a copy of the project in my workspace, ProjectDirectory2, the repository for the second project now will try to create a second root directory, ProjectDirectory. Unfortunately, when I try to add a repository for a project using EGit, I seem to only be able to use Team > Share Project on the project folder itself and I don't seem to see anyway to exclude the root directory in the repository from within Eclipse.
Any suggestions on how to skip the top directory in the repository using EGit? I'd prefer being able to do everything from within Eclipse, but if there isn't a way, is there a way to setup the repository this way outside of git, then still be able to use the git control regularly from within git on the repository skipping the top level directory? Thank you much.
Short answer is It is POSSIBLE with EGIT + M2E
trick is when doing share project -> in the configure git repo window
making sure use or create repository in parent folder of project is ticked
and making sure click create repository button
the main aim of this is to create the .git folder in you project root
not above your project root.
Here's my solution. Though not particularly elegant - the steps are all simple, it works, and can be done in about 10 minutes:
Clone the remote git repo into your local filesystem .. e.g.: ~/git/project_repo_root
Create your eclipse project as usual .. e.g.: ~/workspace/eclipse_project_root
Delete the project from eclipse (but not filesystem!)
Open file manager and move the eclipse project you just created from ~/workspace/ root into ~/git
mv ~/workspace/eclipse_project_root ~/git/
Move the .git/ folder from the repo folder to the eclipse project root folder:
mv ~/git/project_repo_root/.git ~/git/eclipse_project_root
Using a shell go into /eclipse_project_root/ and do the usual command line commands for all files you want in the repo:
git add <abc>; .. commit; .. push
Return to Eclipse and go to Git Perspective, and click "Add an existing local Git repo to this view". Select the git repo you are working with and the view should be updated with an entry for that repo once you say ok.
Once you see the local repo in your view, you can right click it and select Import Projects
Go back to your main development perspective (Java, etc) and you should see the project there with the Git markup on the root node in package explorer view.
~~~~~
At that point, you should see the eclipse project folder you had just moved (to ~/git in the examples described here)
I realize this is more verbose than I would like my answers to be, but for this particular challenge/solution .. I don't know of a more straightforward way to do it.
And as for the post above that describes you should always include the eclipse project root directory .. the reality is some projects/clients/etc require that the git repo not contain the root folder. So a solution like this is necessary sometimes
You should commit the project root for multiple reasons:
If you commit only sub directories of your project, you will miss files and folders which are hidden below the project root (e.g. the .settings directory and others). Those need to be committed also, otherwise your project is going to miss information and may not lead to the same results on another machine.
Your wish of trying to clone the same repository a second time in the same workspace sounds very much like you should re-read about git branches. In git, switching between branches is done after a blinking of the eye, so branches should be used when working on different features, versions or otherwise different editions of your project.
The Eclipse project name and the underlying folder name on disk do not need to be the same (watch out for the checkbox "use default location" when creating a new project). So you can checkout a second clone of the project with a different name.
If you later add more projects to your workspace (e.g. a test project), you cannot easily share them into the same git repository, as the content of those additional projects would mix up with the sub directories of the first project in the repository.
If you have maven project you would typical like to create a repository without the project folder created by egit. For my experience this is not possible with the egit plugin.
But it can be easily done from the git command line.
First move your existing eclipse/maven project from your eclipse workspace into your git folder (this is what also the egit plugin did):
mv myproject ~/git/
next create a new git repository
cd ~/git/myproject
git init
Now create a .gitignore file and place it into your new repository folder (~/git/myproject/.gitignore). This is an example for a .gitignore file:
# ignore all bin directories
# matches "bin" in any subfolder
bin/
# ignore all target directories
target/
# ignore all files ending with ~
*~
# ignore eclipse directories and project files
.settings/
.project
.classpath
Finally initalize your new repository with the content of your project
git add *
git commit -m "My initial commit message"
Thats it.
Now you can restart your eclipse and reimport the project from your new git repository.
Go into your eclipse egit repository view and coose 'import exisiting project'.
I have tried pushing several eclipse projects to github repos. Every time I have trouble later cloning or fetching them back into eclipse. The reason seems to be that the eclipse specific project files (.project, .classpath, etc) are not staged when I do a 'git add .' I have tried researching gitignore files but cannot find one created by default. The file in .git/info/exclude also seems unrelated. I've searched StackOverflow and the internet at large and find no mention of this. So obviously I'm the only person this has every happened to or the only dummy who can't figure it out on my own. Do I need to stage those project files explicitly to include them in them in the repo (after adding a whole project with a 'git add .')?
If those Eclispe project weren't in a git repo locally, you can create a git repo at the root directory of your project, and you should be able to add the files with a '?' on them, including the .project and .classpath:
(From Egit User Guide / Create Repository section)
But if the project is already in a git repo, check first in the git command-line those files status. In doubt, always fall back to the CLI (command line interface), with any local git installation (for instance for Windows: msysgit)
The EGit Eclipse option "Import > Git > Projects from Git" should reference all the files, included the .project and .classpath
I'd recommend using Egit instead of the command line in this case. While the command line is typically more powerful, Egit knows better about the logical project structure of an Eclipse project.
Im very new to git ingeneral, egit and github.
The problem:
Lets say I have a project for eclipse in c:/username/workspace name "Test". So I versioned it and pushed it up to github.
Now I can see all my Files in github under the directory "Test" in github. In example /src. The "Test" directory is not versioned. only the name of the repository is "Test".
My next step was to delete my local files and fetch my project again(For testing). After that I had to import my project again (but I had to use the new project wizard) over the egit view. Unluckily also the wrong scala version was detected. (Was a play framework project). So I had a big exclamation mark on the project view.
My questions:
What is the best practice to oush a project to github so everyone can participate? Everything under the project folder? Obviously some information got lost through the process.
How can I prevent to generate a new project every time someone clones the repository?
What about best practices for using git inside the workspace. Eclipse warned not to put the project inside the workspace.
Im coming from a subversion background :/. Maybe a general missunderstanding.
Thanks in advance
Switching from SVN to Git in an Eclipse environment can take some getting use to. (I'm still getting accustomed to it myself.) Keep in mind the difference between the role of the .git folder and the .svn folders for Git and SVN respectively. There is a .svn folder at every folder level in the working copy. There is no .svn folder in the traditional Eclipse workspace root. The "source controlled things" are subdirectories of the workspace, not the workspace itself. This is generally good because the workspace contains desktop specific settings that one generally doesn't want shared (much of it in the .metadata directory).
With Git, there is only one .git folder that contains everything. The first impulse is to do a
git init
at the workspace level. This would make the subfolders (the Eclipse projects) eligible for source control. But wait, so is .metadata. Of course you can ignore it. But you may have to ignore lots of other folders (projects) that you do not want source controlled. Of course, the .gitignore should be included. But others will have different files to ignore.
It turns out that its easier to use Git with Eclipse if you place the .git folder and its sibling source controlled folders (Eclipse projects) someplace else besides the workspace root. Your view in Eclipse doesn't change. You still see all your projects, both the Git-controlled and the SVN controlled and ones not shared at all. But underneath in the filesystem, the Git-controlled folders will be somewhere else. This is what EGit prefers.
On my desktop, I have a workspaces directory for most of my Eclipse workspaces. Now that I use EGit, I also have an egit directory where I keep the local EGit repositories. The Eclipse workspaces that share using EGit reference a subdirectory of egit. It's from these local Git repositories that one pushes and pulls from GitHub.
Sorry for the length. I got a bit carried away.