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Eclipse and existing CVS modules

On a project I’m working on, we just made the move from local CVS via a windows share to remote CVS via ssh. I’m a big fan of that, because I was seeing some weird behavior from the drive, and because Eclipse doesn’t support local repositories.

The Eclipse/CVS FAQ had some good information, but I had a bit of trouble importing CVS source into a java project (which is important so you get the command line completion, etc).

The easiest way I’ve found to get things working in Eclipse with previously existing CVS modules is to do this:

  • Make sure everything is checked into CVS using command line tools.
  • Open eclipse.
  • Delete the project(s). When it prompts you “Are you sure you want to
    delete project ‘xxx’?” choose “Do not delete contents” and click “Yes”.
  • For each project:
    • On the menu, Go to File/New Project.
    • Choose “Java Project”.
    • Give the project name you’ve used for the module.
    • On the same screen, choose “Create project from existing source”. Put the path of the directory of the previously checked out file.
    • Click finish.

Eclipse is smart enough to connect to CVS by looking in the CVS subdirectories, although you may need to change your project’s CVS settings. I had to change it from the ext to the extssh connection method.

This was with Eclipse version 3.1.2 Build M20060118-1600 on Windows, with cygwin.

[tags]Eclipse, cvs[/tags]