Git repo outside of Eclipse workspace

Question

(for some reason I can't log in with my old account, sorry for the unfriendly username)

I'm using Eclipse and git. There have been several discussions about having the git repository outside of the Eclipse workspace. This is one of them:

Should I store git repository in Home or Eclipse Workspace?

So, I created a repo outside the workspace, and my project files are now in the repo. I can still see the project in Eclipse, work on the project, and generally do what I used to do, so all is well. Project Properties show that the project is in the repo and outside the workspace.

But then what's the "Eclipse Workspace" good for? What does it even mean to have an "Eclipse Workspace" ? If after all you can work wherever you like, then your entire disk is your "Eclipse Workspace" ?

Or am I missing something? Am I supposed to copy the project into the workspace and work on that copy? If it makes any difference, the idea is to have a repo on GitHub and push and pull my local stuff to/from there...

Thank you.

Answer 1

But then what's the "Eclipse Workspace" good for? What does it even mean to have an "Eclipse Workspace" ?

This is for project metadata, and shouldn't be confused with the actual data of your project.

• Those data can be stored in a git repo anywhere on your disk.
• the Eclipse project can be imported in an Eclipse workspace, for Eclipse to work with.

That is why, when you delete a project in Eclipse, you can simply "unreferenced" it form your Eclipse workspace, while keeping it on your hard drive.