Question

I need to have one lib-project (myLib), and several apps projects that should use source from myLib. I have troubles with configuring Eclipse.

Desired projects tree is something like that:

myProject
   /src
      ..some files..
   /bin

myLib
   /src
      ..some files..
   /bin

Now i am trying to configure myProject‘s classpath, to make it use source from myLib/src.

If i add link source using Eclipse’s GUI (UPD: I added link to the source folder this way: right-click on the project -> Build path -> Configure build path -> go to “Source” tab -> press button “Link Source…” -> specify path to the myLib/src and folder name: “lib_src“), then i got absolute path to myLib/src, i.e. the following:

myProject/.classpath:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<classpath>
    <classpathentry kind="src" path="src"/>
    <classpathentry kind="src" path="lib_src"/>
    <classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER"/>
    <classpathentry kind="output" path="bin"/>
</classpath>

myProject/.project:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
    <name>data_manager__gui</name>
    <comment></comment>
    <projects>
    </projects>
    <buildSpec>
        <buildCommand>
            <name>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder</name>
            <arguments>
            </arguments>
        </buildCommand>
    </buildSpec>
    <natures>
        <nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature>
    </natures>
    <linkedResources>
        <link>
            <name>lib_src</name>
            <type>2</type>
            <location>/HERE/IS/FULL/PATH/TO/myLib/src</location>
        </link>
    </linkedResources>
</projectDescription>

As I already said, I need to avoid absolute paths. So, I need path myLib/src to be specified like that: ../myLib/src

Then i tried to specify path to myLib/src manually, but if I add in .classpath the line like that:

<classpathentry kind="src" path="../myLib/src"/>

Then Eclipse thinks that .classpath is totally broken, and reset it to the following blank default:

<classpath>
    <classpathentry kind="src" path=""/>
    <classpathentry kind="output" path="bin"/>
</classpath>

Then I tried to change path in the .project file, but it seems like relative paths are totally not supported in .project file: Eclipse can’t find my myLib/src, I tried many variants.

How to achieve this?

Answer 1

I am not sure how you added the project reference, but in my case, the path is relative.

This is the .classpath of a project called Adarsh which references another Java project called raroscope.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<classpath>
    <classpathentry kind="src" path="src"/>
    <classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/JavaSE-1.6"/>
    <classpathentry combineaccessrules="false" kind="src" path="/raroscope"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="geocoder-java-0.9.jar" sourcepath="geocoder-java-0.9-sources.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="commons-logging.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="gson-2.1.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="commons-lang.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="output" path="bin"/>
</classpath>

You should be right-clicking on your project myProject, select Java Build Path > Projects and add myLib (raroscope here) as is shown below.