Which NetBeans projects files should go into source control? - version-control

We normally use Eclipse for a particular Java project, but recently I imported the project into NetBeans to use its dialog building features.
Since I'll probably come back to this, I wanted to store the NetBeans project files into version control. However, I don't want to commit files that are "mine" versus "project", i.e., files with my own settings that would conflict with another user's.
NetBeans created the following structure in the top-level project area:
nbbuild
nb-build.xml
nbproject
<various files>
configs
private
Clearly nbbuild is build output, so that won't go in. The nb-build.xml file seems likely, as does most of nbproject. However, nbproject/private suggests it's "mine". Peeking at "configs", it's not clear to me if that's mine or project...
Anyone have some guidelines?

The NetBeans knowledge base article on project files & version control discusses the NetBeans project files, with loose advice about which files are project specific (i.e. can be shared via version control), and which are user specific.
Here is the section on version control:
If the project is checked out of a version control system, the build (or nbbuild), dist (or nbdist), and the nbproject/private folders should not be checked into that version control system.
If the project is under the CVS, Subversion, or Mercurial version control systems, the appropriate "ignore" files are created or updated for these directories when the project is imported.
Though nbproject/private should be ignored, nbproject should be checked into the version control system. nbproject contains project metadata that enables other users to open the project in NetBeans without having to import the project first.

It turns out that both Thomas & Petercardona are correct, in a way. NetBeans recommends that you only import source code and/or documentation. Oh and the nbproject folder but not the *nbproject/private** folders.
From the NetBeans Knowledge Base article on importing Eclipse projects:
Version Control Considerations
If the project is checked out of a
version control system, the build (or
nbbuild), dist (or nbdist), and the
nbproject/private folders should not be checked into that version control
system.
If the project is under the CVS,
Subversion, or Mercurial version
control systems, the appropriate
"ignore" files are created or updated
for these directories when the project
is imported.
Though nbproject/private should be
ignored, nbproject should be checked
into the version control system.
nbproject contains project metadata that enables others users to open the
project in NetBeans without having to
import the project first.

None.
Only source files, build scripts, and documentation that is not automatically generated (e.g. - the output of tools such as JavaDoc and Doxygen) should be checked into a repository. Things like project files, binaries, and generated documentation should not be checked in.
The reason is two-fold. First, you don't want to overwrite another developer's project settings with your own. Second, other developers might not be using the same IDE as you (or even an IDE at all), so don't give them any more than they need to build (the project or its associated documentation) or run the project.

As tested with Netbeans 6.8, only the project.xml, configurations.xml and the main makefile (the customisable one in the parent dir of the 'nbproject' dir, with pre/post target definitions) must be distributed via the repository. All other files will be automatically (re)generated by Netbeans (Makefile-impl.ml, Makefile-variables.ml, all the Makefile-$CONF, Package-$CONF.bash). The 'private' dir should also be ignored, obviously.

You can check also
https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/Global/NetBeans.gitignore
This open source project contains
A collection of useful .gitignore templates

Toptal has a useful tool for developers wanting to find out what should go on a .gitignore file.
https://www.toptal.com/developers/gitignore
For netbeans, just search Netbeans and it should return a template something like
**/nbproject/private/
**/nbproject/Makefile-*.mk
**/nbproject/Package-*.bash build/
nbbuild/
dist/
nbdist/
.nb-gradle/
Copying and pasting this into a .ignore file on your project's directory should solve your problem.

Related

Permanently fix the Eclipse error "project description file (.project) is missing"

Every time I boot Eclipse I get the error "The project description file (.project) for my project is missing".
As other StackOverflow answers have show, this is easy enough to fix: delete package from Eclipse and import it again. However, if I close and reopen Eclipse the error will be back. I have not found a permanent solution yet.
I have my workspace in my Dropbox, but at some point I decided it was time to start using Git. I don't really get Git but they say you have to put the .project file in your .gitignore because it is computer specific.
This I feel is the origin of the problem, but if I don't do any git related activities (push, commit, etc.) I still get this error.
How do I fix this once and for all?
A .project is a Eclipse-specific file that tells Eclipse about how the project's struture is placed in the project's hierarchy.
It's normal for this file (and other Eclipse specific files) to not be committed because other people participating on the same project may use other IDEs of their choices (intellij, and so on), so the content committed in your VCS is 'neutral' for IDEs.
When you create a project from inside Eclipse, the .project file shall be created along. But when you import into Eclipse an existing project, there are ways to generate locally the .project , .classpath and other Eclipse-required files. Maven, Gradle and Ant are some examples of tools that do this.
Finally, I recommend to keep these files in .gitignore so the project's contents in VCS will remain neutral to IDEs. So you will not bother other people using other IDEs.
So, the steps are:
Check out the project
Generate the eclipse files using maven, ant or gradle. If your project already uses a tool such as these, thats nice
Check if the project is OK inside eclipse (compiling, no errors)
Add the newly generated eclipse files to .gitignore
commit and push the .gitignore.
.project is not machine-specific as long as everyone on your team has the plug-ins installed for that kind of project. .classpath might be if you don't do things right. This is your project, though, so commit your .project.
Keeping .classpath clean largely revolves around keeping machine-specific paths and references out of it:
Set the project's JRE using an Execution Environment. It is an indirect way of saying what version you need, then the IDE figures it out for that machine. The stored value defaults to using the name of your default Installed JRE in the preferences, which is very machine-specific.
Put the jar files you need into the project, or into another project that this one can refer to. They go into source control as well for the sake of repeatability, unless you're using a tool like Maven, in which case be specific about the version you require where ever you state that dependency and make sure the relevant M2E plug-ins are installed.

eclipse intellij can use Github for same project

Is it possible to create one project in GitHub, and two teams who are using different IDE like Eclipse and Intellij can configure project with github and can work simultaneously on same project?
I have searched it but not able to find proper solution for it.
Yes, you even can version:
your .project and .classpath (eclipse)
and your .idea folder (intellij)
And both set of IDE-specific files would ignore each others: one could use the Eclipse settings without realizing there is an IntelliJ IDEA project, and vice-versa.
Yes this is possible.
Most IDE's do create some specific project folders, where the IDE does store Data for your project. As example local build paths and so on.
Git provides the .gitignore file.
In this file you can specify which folders and files git will ignore. As example IDE Based files and folders. Due that every developer can his favourite IDE and no local IDE based files will be in the Git Porject itself.
Most IDE's will update or crate the .gitignore File automatic when they do find an git folder in the project.
What files you have to add to the .gitignore file is differs from IDE to IDE. It also depends on what Programm language your Project is written in.
Here you can find more about the gitignore file:
How do I ignore files in a directory in Git?
http://www.bmchild.com/2012/06/git-ignore-for-java-eclipse-project.html
Yes you can, there no limits on IDEs and number of team members, check this for Eclipse
and this for IntelliJ

Sharing eclipse project over SVN

We want to share an eclipse Qt project via an SVN repository.
Of course we need to share the .pro file of Qt to be able to build the project.
The problem is, that without the project files you can not handle the project in eclipse but we cannot use the same as they contain local references.
Also it would be nice to use the Eclipse SVN plugin to manage this.
I already tried to check out the project and create a Qt project on Checkout but this overwrites the checked-out project file.
Any suggestion would be appreciated.
These are some lines from the .cproject file that are autogenerated, so I can not change the absolute paths:
<storageModule moduleId="org.eclipse.cdt.core.pathentry">
<pathentry base-path="/usr/include/qt4" include="" kind="inc" path="" system="true"/>
<pathentry base-path="/usr/include/qt4" include="QtWebKit" kind="inc" path="" system="true"/>
...
There are 2 rules for Subversion (independent of Eclipse, should be the same all the time):
If the tool will regenerate a file, and you don't have to change it:
==> don't check it in your version management (may it Subversion, Git, CVS, ...).
If the file contains parts that are manually changed by a user
==> it should be checked into version management.
If you have the second case (not clear from your question), you should try to change the paths to be relative, so that others could use your project at the same location.
If you cannot change that, stick to the location in the file system. Every developer has to use an identical setup.
If you have to support different operating systems, and the files generated by the tooling are not compliant (shame on the tool makers), you should hold templates for all operating systems in your version management, and should initially (manually) make a copy, depending on the operating system you are working in.
If you have to change that file for some purpose, you have to change the templates as well and should remember that all developers have to make a new copy after that.
Sorry, I don't know Qt and have never developed in a C-environment on different platforms, so my tips are pretty vague.
Finally I found following solution:
No .cproject .project file in SVN!
Import the code files from SVN (also the .pro file for Qt)
Eclipse will ask you to create a project, so create a Qt Project with the same name (or some else, but you will then have to delete the files)
When the project was created, revert it (right MB on the Project in Project Explorer -> Team -> Revert) to the state of the repo checkout
Done, now you can work with the project

Eclipse does not respect .cvsignore

In my project there is a symlink to a folder from another project.
The name of this folder is in .cvsignore
But this folder (symlink) contains cvs metadata (CVS folders) from the other project.
The cvs command has no problem with this and ignores the folder.
But eclipse wants to synchronize it.
The question is, can ecplise ignore a folder at synchronize time, or how to make eclipse respect .cvsignore files?
the folder (symlink) name is shared and in my .cvsignore contains a line with it's name
We use the symlink trick to share sources between our software and its plugins which are built separately (separate autotools projects).
The issue here is an explicitly shared folder overriding the .cvsignore entry.
You can find the exact details as explained by the previous Eclipse CVS component lead within bug 169710. This bug is marked as a duplicate of another defect which is still open, meaning this is a known issue.
As Michael pointed out, your choice is to use an Eclipse link for development:
Add new folder to Eclipse project
Select Advanced > Link to alternate location (Linked Folder)
Select the workspace variable (i.e. WORKSPACE_LOC) and point to the other project on your workspace (i.e. WORKSPACE_LOC/other_project/foo)
This will get you a linked resource that developers don't have to worry about mistakenly checking-in. For your automated builds you'll need an extra post-checkout step where you create the symlink.
This is not ideal but it's a sensible alternative, short of fixing the Eclipse issue.

When working with Eclipse, should I add the workspace to the source control?

I am the only developer on this project.
I would not add the complete workspace, but I would add the .classpath and .project files (as well as the source, of course) so that you can recreate the project if needbe.
I wouldn't commit the whole workspace. But it is worth exporting platform settings and checking them into source control (probably in a separate SCM project as they don't really belong to any individual project) if you've made several changes in case you need to import them into a new workspace.
Examples of these files are those settings for:
Java->Code Style->Formatter
Java->Code Style->Clean Up
Java->Code Style->Code Templates
General->Editors-Text Editors-Spelling-Dictionary
Any other preferences you've made extensive changes to that support import/export
You should check in the primary sources/resources for the project. As others have noted, for a typical project this includes the .project and .classpath files.
Depending on the type of project, I'd add the .settings folder from the project. This folder contains project-specific settings that override the platform preferences, and other project-specific settings. If those are essential to your project then I would add them.
No.
Files that are generated by the IDE or by a build process (binary files, documentation produced by a generator) should not be checked into source control. The only files that should be checked in are your source files and external libraries that your source files utilize.
You might also be interested in the answers to this question: What should NOT be under source control?
I would commit only the project(s) you are working on, as well as .classpath and .project files, and not the whole workspace itself.
Even if you are the only developer, avoid committing the .settings directory. You could switch to another version of Eclipse, or another installation with a different set of plugins, and when you checkout projects in the second installation the .settings directory will be different. Also the .metadata directory is bound to vary.
That said, attempt to use Maven so that the Eclipse .project and .classpath files can be generated without requiring them to be checked in.
I've played with the idea (with Subversion) of having a "MyProject_Eclipseproj" folder that only contains the the Eclipse project files and directories, with an svn:externals prop that pulls in all the "MyProject" files/directories.
So, the layout would be:
/repos/trunk/MyProject
/repos/trunk/MyProject/build.xml
/repos/trunk/MyProject/src
/repos/trunk/MyProject/src/com
/repos/trunk/MyProject/src/com/mypackage
/repos/trunk/MyProject/src/com/mypackage/MyClass.java
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_34 <- external prop goes here
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_34/.settings/
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_34/.project
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_34/.classpath
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_35 <- external prop goes here
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_35/.settings/
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_35/.project
/repos/trunk/MyProject_Eclipse_35/.classpath
The MyProject folder would be pure code, no eclipse contaimination. The MyProject_Eclipse_Ver would contain Eclipse specific files, and pointers to pull in the code folders. You could also have specific folders for different Eclipse versions so each developer wouldn't be forced to upgrade if something changed in the .settings or .project file between versions.