Should we or should we not check in the classes folder in WEB-INF directory into SVN?

Question

I use SVN, and am learning how to use it along with eclipse IDE. The first time I add classes to my package, there is no problem, the generated class files get into SVN smoothly. The moment I edit them, I get this message - "WEB-INF/classes" is obstructed. I try the "clean-up" command and the clean up command says "WEB-INF/classes" folder is locked.

I use TortoiseSVN as my SVN client. I know why this is happening. It probably because the Eclipse overwrites all the files while generating classes and then causes this - Is it inappropriate to commit the class files into SVN? If not, what should I do to commit these class files smoothly?

Answer 1

As a rule of thumb, you should only check the source code into your version control system, and ignore the binaries. The .class files can be built from the source code, so they don't really provide any extra information - and it is trivial to re-create them if you need .class files.

Answer 2

Subversion is best for managing changes to plain text files, such as source code. An svn diff won't help if you're doing it on, say, a JPG image or a compiled Java .class file.

You can use svn:ignore on anything that you always want to avoid checking into a subversion repository, such as WEB-INF/classes or WEB-INF/lib or your maven ./target directory.