[news.eclipse.enterprise-users] Re: .project - invisible file name

[John Arthorne <eclipseng@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Scott,

Unfortunately it is hard-coded and can't be changed. It needed to have a 
well known name to allow tools to perform special processing on it, and 
so that when a project is imported or checked out of a repository 
Eclipse can find it. It is specified in the API constant 
org.eclipse.core.resources.IProjectDescription.DESCRIPTION_FILE_NAME.

John


Scott wrote:
> Hi there.  I have a need to be able to tell eclipse not to use an (UNIX) 
> invisible file name for it's project file and settings.  Because 
> '.project' is, by definition, invisible, when I try to use tools to 
> mount our source code tree on our Unix server, anything starting with a 
> '.' is invisible.  This causes odd and inconsistent behaviour within 
> Eclipse.  It is able to create the '.project' file, for instance, but is 
> unable to read or write to it.
>
> I cannot find this resource in any externalized file (so far, at least) 
> and I am hoping that it was not hard-coded (GASP!).  While I am 
> searching for where this string is located in the Eclipse source, I 
> thought I would ask if there is a way I can modify this string easily.
>
> I realize that if used completely within an Unix framework or completely 
> within a Windows framework that this would not be a problem, but 
> unfortunately for a lot of Enterprise implementations, cross-platform 
> usability is essential.  Not to mention that hard-coding a resource name 
> is REALLY bad programming practice ;-)
>
> If anyone knows of a good way to change this string withing Eclipse, I 
> would greatly appreciate it.
>
> Thank you,
> Scott