CVS and Eclipse - Hints & Tips

Eclipse has a CVS client built in via it's "Team" functionality. Whilst this makes most aspects of CVS usage simple, initially setting up an Eclipse project based upon files currently stored in CVS is a little more difficult. However we cannot assume everyone will be using Eclipse for development. In addition, we already have an agreed CVS and package structure defined (see Forum). Thus CVS is organised as "org/astrogrid/<project>" (where <project> will be either a work package - e.g. Registry, MySpace etc - or a set of related utilities). This structure does not map directly to an Eclipse project, hence this note.

Two possible ways of working are (1) checkout only those resources you are currently working on or (2) checkout the whole AstroGrid project. There are pros and cons to both:

To work on specific components

1. Create empty project called AstroGrid (or whatever)
2. Add folders "org" and "org/astrogrid" to the project
3. From the CVS perspective, select folder required and use "checkout into..." to put folder & files into org/astrogrid

Note: sub folders created below the folder checked out will commit correctly to CVS (e.g. if you checkout "portal" to org/astrogrid and then create "portal/portlet", the subfolder "portlet" will commit into CVS without problems. If however you create org/astrogrid/mynewportal, it will not commit into CVS. This is because "org/astrogrid" did not come from CVS in the first place and so CVS has no idea where to put "mynewportal". Instead, you must manually "import" the new folder into CVS. See the various CVS notes for details of "cvs import".

Hint:

$> cd [...]mynewportal

$> cvs import org/astrogrid/mynewportal <vendorTag> <releaseTag>

Checkout whole AstroGrid project

1. Create an empty project
2. From the CVS perspective, select "org" and use "checkout into..." to put all files and folders (ensure checkout subfolders is checked) into the top level project creatred in step (1)
3. Be careful not to delete files in the project and then "commit" those deletes unless you are sure you want to remove the files from CVS as well!

Note: the problem described above is avoided using this method but does involve checking out the entire AstroGrid project.

-- KeithNoddle - 05 Mar 2003