How to search sourceforge.net for Java projects that are built in Eclipse

Question

Sourceforge.net has a filter for Java projects, but I'm looking for a way to narrow them down to ones that are meant to be built in Eclipse.

Edit I'm using Eclipse Metrics and Omondo plug-ins to analyze open-source Java projects. I'm looking for a quick way to find Eclipse open-source projects that can build quickly in Eclipse, so I can use these tools on them for analysis.

Answer 1

I presume that a project that is "meant to be built in Eclipse" is one that has an Eclipse .project file and other stuff checked into the source repository.

First, checking in Eclipse-specific stuff can a bad idea because it is easy to include stuff (e.g. build pathnames, preferences) that are specific to the developer. You then get problems if there are multiple committers ...

Second, this should unnecessary. Most of the stuff in the .project file can be generated when you import the project. If that's not possible, then the project should provide instructions for setting up the buildpath etcetera. (Note that if the project uses Maven, this is all taken care of for you.)

Third, any project worth its salt will include build scripts of some kind that allow you to rebuild without using any IDE.

Finally, any project that only supports building using Eclipse is excluding the significant subset of developers who use other Java IDEs.

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Note that neither Maven or Ant builds require Eclipse to work. Both of these build tools can run from the command line, or from other Java IDEs.

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OK. I understand your requirements now. You don't actually care what the project is ... or that it is sound / worthwhile project. You just need it for testing your plugin. (I won't comment on the "validity" of doing this. It depends on what you hope to achieve.)

I suggest that you install the m2eclipse plugin and look for projects with a "pom.xml" file. The projects don't need to be eclipse specific. The m2eclipse plugin automatically creates the ".project", ".classpath" and so on based on the "pom.xml" file. There's no need to exclude any particular version control system, because the m2eclipse plugin can import Maven projects that you checked out from the command line.