Managing dependencies with Eclipse and CVS

Question

I have a bit of code for a dll that is needed by two or more projects in eclipse. Currently each project has a copy of the code and builds the DLL separately. I want to separate the dll code into a separate eclipse project so there is a common location. But I want to avoid the situation where we have to build the dll in the one project, then copy the dll back to the other projects and check the dll to each respective project. This will create a dll for each project that isn't traceable to the exact code that it was built with.

Is there a way to somehow symbolically link the dlls to another eclipse project that is using CVS as the version control system so that it is possible to tell which version of the code was used to create the dll? Am I making this too complicated or missing something obvious?

I thought about working sets in the package manager for eclipse, but I have to investigate more on how to use them with CVS to avoid making it a nightmare for the next person who checks it out and can't figure out why their project won't compile.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you are working with one workspace, you end up with three projects, each mirrored in CVS: One is the dll, the others are the projects using the dll (configured as a project dependency of these projects upon the dll project).

With three projects I wouldn't aim for working sets - they are good for managing a lot of projects within one workspace, for three projects, I'd consider them overkill. I usually tend to aim for several workspaces instead of working sets.

Regarding the next person working with these projects: You need to keep some kind of documentation about how to setup your projects. You might say that your eclipse project files do just that (as they define a project dependency upon another project) but this is for the machine - humans tend to like other communication means.

If you are worried about changes to the dll being incompatible to one project (because the person applying these changes doesn't care about the other project), aim for a build server. This will build all projects and dependent projects whenever something under version control changes, run all tests, provide a build number and package it all ready for use. This way you can be sure that - whatever is in your deliverable - can be reproduced, because the buildserver is not able to make local (uncommitted) changes to the code. Also a buildserver will signal failure (either broken API or broken tests) at the moment of the last commit (well - a few minutes later) and place the burden of repairing the damage on the one causing the damage.

Answer 2

What about creating a new folder in a separate project. In the advanced section of creating a new folder there is an option to link to another location on the file system.

Or you could also create a container project that makes use of a projectset.psf file. Have the projectset file link to the different projects in your repository. When you want to check out that project, check out the container instead and right click on the projectset file and select Import Project Set...