[MECLIPSE-731] eclipse:clean not deleting ./settings folder that it creates

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.9
• Fix Version/s: 2.10
• Environment: Maven 3.0.3 maven-eclipse-plugin 2.9
• Assignee: Olivier Lamy
• Reporter: Glen Mazza
• Created: 07/Sep/12 19:06
• Updated: 14/Dec/12 16:13
• Resolved: 10/Sep/12 08:10

Description

Hi, I use mvn eclipse:eclipse to create Eclipse projects that I subsequently import into my IDE. I then make code changes, and run mvn eclipse:clean prior to uploading my changes to GitHub.

Problem is that eclipse:clean is not deleting the ./settings folder, giving me this list of files that I have to manually delete before I can do a simple git add . prior to committing:

gmazza@ubuntu:/media/work1/jersey-samples-on-cxf$ git status

1. On branch master
2. Untracked files:
3. (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
   #
4. entity-provider/.settings/
5. exceptions/.settings/
6. helloworld-webapp/.settings/
7. helloworld/.settings/
8. https-server-glassfish/.settings/
9. jacksonjsonprovider/.settings/
10. json-from-jaxb/.settings/
11. jsonp/.settings/
12. simple-console/.settings/
13. simple-servlet/.settings/

The Linux command I otherwise have to run to delete all these settings folders: find . -name '.settings' -type d | xargs rm -rf {} \; is quite complex and outside the capabilities of many/most Linux users (like me, I got the above command from Olivier Lamy).

mvn eclipse:help says it's already supposed to delete the .settings folder:

Maven Eclipse Plugin 2.9
The Eclipse Plugin is used to generate Eclipse IDE files (.project, .classpath
and the .settings folder) from a POM.

This plugin has 13 goals:

...

eclipse:clean
Deletes the .project, .classpath, .wtpmodules files and .settings folder used
by Eclipse.

...

Apparently the deletion of the .settings folder was made to please the people who posted http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MECLIPSE-71 – I would say theirs is minority use case (~10-15%?) though of just wanting mvn eclipse:clean to delete just some but not all of the artifacts that mvn eclipse:eclipse created; therefore some plugin configuration setting like <keepSettingsFolder>true</keepSettingsFolder> should be created with a default value of "false" to not require this explicit configuration for the most common use-case; however if backwards compatibility is a concern the default value for this setting can be set to true. Regardless, eclipse:help should be updated to inform people to put in this setting to exclude/include deletion of the ".settings" folder. Thanks!

Issue Links

• relates to: MECLIPSE-71 eclipse:clean delets too much