Where did the .target directory come from in my Play 2.1.1 project?

Question

I'm just getting started with the Scala/Play 2.1.1/Scala-IDE stack and am kind-of confused as to why my Play 2.1 project directory contains both a target directory and a .target directory. The stock .gitignore appropriately ignores the target directory, but not the .target one.

Where did .target come from, what does it mean, and should it be also included in .gitignore?

Answer 1

.target is the directory configured for Eclipse output by SBT (when you use the SBT eclipse command).

According to this issue, they choose this name (not the same as the SBT target directory) to avoid Eclipse and SBT compiling to the same directory.

You can include it in your .gitignore.