Oracle ADF 12 Project Structure

Question

I'm developing a ADF Fusion Web Application in JDeveloper 12. After the creation of the project I took a look at the file system and a bunch of directories were created. Can anyone tell me what the .adf folder is good for? I can't find anything about it in the Oracle Docs. I'm developing with git and I'd like to know if I have to version this directory, too.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Inside the above mentioned folder can be found two files: adf-config.xml and connections.xml. For an overview of their usage you can take a look at these links: Oracle ADF XML File Appendix and Web Center. In both of them it states that there are stored application-level setting during design time, which can be used later during the deployment process (it seems quite important though :) ). So, even if you delete that folder it should be recreated if you make any changes and redeploy the application, BUT, if it is there it means it should be there (typical Oracle politics ;) ). So even if you are really in need of their settings (such as modify connection details to point to production server instances) it should be versioned as well.
I'm using svn, and it does version it automatically.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

ADF creates several files and folders that are needed by the project.
It creates them when the project uses a functionality that needs those files.
In .adf/META-INF/ you can find adf-config.xml & connections.xml which are Application Level Settings.
But for example src/META-INF/jazn-data.xml doesn't exist until you enable Security on your application. This file is also needed and should be on SVN/Git.

ADF also creates some temporary files and folders that shouldn't be on Git/SVN. Like: .data/.
Depending on what technologies you use from the ADF stack (ADF BC, ADF Model, ADF Controller, ADF Faces), you should understand what files and folders are created.

If you have searched for .adf/ in the official Documentation you would have found your answers.

Answer 3

ADF by default creates .adf and .data file, .adf file you can say is for holding various info related to your workspace in IDE i.e the connections that its having with Database, META-INF info used for customization purpose. & .data support your MDS functionality. we can always delete it but our Jdev will create it automatically, whenever we rebuild our application.