[AXIS2-5872] pom.xml for axis2-webapp is incompatible with Eclipse

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.7.6
• Fix Version/s: 1.7.7
• Component/s: modules

Environment

Windows 10 Pro x86-64, JDK 1.8 x86-64, Eclipse Oxygen Release (4.7.0),

m2e - Maven Integration for Eclipse (includes Incubating components) 1.8.0.20170516-2043
m2e - slf4j over logback logging (Optional) 1.8.0.20170516-2043
m2e connector for build-helper-maven-plugin 0.15.0.201207090124
m2e connector for maven-remote-resources-plugin 0.0.1.201411160138
m2e connector for the Maven Dependency Plugin 0.0.4.201409291703
m2e-wtp - JAX-RS configurator for WTP (Optional) 1.3.2.20170517-2015
m2e-wtp - JPA configurator for WTP (Optional) 1.3.2.20170517-2015
m2e-wtp - JSF configurator for WTP (Optional) 1.3.2.20170517-2015
m2e-wtp - Maven Integration for WTP 1.3.2.20170517-2015

• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Thorsten Schöning
• Created: 28/Aug/17 16:42
• Updated: 01/Sep/17 06:57
• Resolved: 01/Sep/17 06:57

Description

Im trying to get the current trunk to work in Eclipse using Maven plugins and following the guide on the project site by essentially checking out and executing "mvn -DskipTests=true install eclipse:eclipse". This works mostly, but one problem is the created build path for the project axis2-webapp.

pom.xml of that project references the resource ".../kernel/conf", that resource is transferred to be an Eclipse source folder and the problem with those is that they can't be outside the current project easily. While one is able to link arbitrary source folders into the project, that's not what the Maven plugin is doing. Instead it translates the path to some absolute one and simply adds it as is, but Eclipse uses it as some relative path because by design all those source folder paths need to be relativ to the current project, without leaving it. Things like ".." don't work as well in the dialogs of Eclipse.

The file ".classpath" of Eclipse contains the following entry and you can see how Eclipse uses that in the attached screenshots, it simply doesn't work. Removing the resource of pom.xml resolves the issue, but I guess it's there for some reason, you surely need the properties files of "../kernel/conf".

<classpathentry kind="src" path="C:/Users/tschoening/Documents/Eclipse/Java Axis2/axis2/modules/kernel/conf" including=".properties" excluding="/.java"/>

So how about putting the properties files directly in the "conf" folder of axis2-webapp instead of referencing them? This would make Eclipse user's life much easier.

While I know that copying those files is a bit bad, the only other alternatives are svn:externals or symlinks on file system level. svn:externals don't work with GitHub[1], but a lot of people seem to use your project mirror there, and symlinks on file system level are most likely only implemented in GIT/SVN-clients for Linux, not Windows. Windows-Eclipse users like me would need another workaround for that problem. In the end, it doesn't look like those properties file change that often...

Would be nice if you could fix this somehow. The only workaround I have currently is to remove that source folder manually and/or add the needed one using other Eclipse mechanisms. But I guess you would prefer as well that creating project files etc. works automatically as much as possible.

[1]: https://help.github.com/articles/subversion-properties-supported-by-github/