Popular folder structure for build

Question

I am wondering what the popular or best way to organise your build assets and source code within a project is?

Answer 1

for example, I use the following for my .Net style projects;

/build/reports  - reports and logs from the build process
/build/artifacts  - all output of the build process is copied here
/src/  - all solution source code
/lib/  - 3rd party or other build dependencies
/tools/...  - all other helper tools used in the build process
/tools/nant  - example tool
/tools/nunit  - example tool
/myProject.sln  - visual studio solution file (or other IDE)
/default.build  - nant build file

Answer 2

As I am working only on Java projects, and all of them are "Mavenized", I use the conventions defined by Maven for the project structure.

Basically:

project
  src/main/java        --> source files
  src/main/resources   --> resources files (*.xml, *.properties, etc.)
  src/test/java        --> source files for tests.
  src/test/resources   --> resources files for tests.

Answer 3

In general:

src/      - source files
src/tests - unit tests
doc/      - documentation
res/      - static resources (textures, locale database, level definitions etc)
build/    - tools needed to build the system
            project specific libraries and compilers
Makefile  - the makefile (make, test, clean etc)

Answer 4

Personaly I use

/client/projectname/trunk/source/Solution Name.sln
/client/projectname/trunk/source/Project.One
/client/projectname/trunk/source/Project.Two
/client/projectname/trunk/source/Project.Three
/client/projectname/trunk/source/SQL/
/client/projectname/trunk/source/SQL/SomeScript.sql
/client/projectname/trunk/libraries
/client/projectname/trunk/resources/Nunit
/client/projectname/trunk/resources/LLBLGEN
/client/projectname/trunk/documentation
/client/projectname/trunk/builds

It works fine for us but I don't think it's the best. If it's about .net you can also take a look at treesurgeon They describe it themselves as:

Have you ever spent a few days setting up a new development tree? Have you ever spent several days setting up several development trees? Have you even spent weeks trying to perfect all your development trees using a set of best practices?

If the answer to any of the above answers is 'yes', then you'll like Tree Surgeon!

Tree Surgeon is a .NET development tree generator. Just give it the name of your project, and it will set up a development tree for you in seconds. More than that, your new tree has years worth of accumulated build engineering experience built right in.

Answer 5

I like the way the Netbeans IDE organizes projects. Just start a new project, and it will set-up a default development tree and an ant script.

Answer 6

I have

/src    - source files (test files are within a package 'test' here, or 'test' subpackage of what is being tested)
/lib    - required libraries
/doc    - text documentation and development notes
/build  - where we build (each separate build item within a subfolder here)
/conf   - configurations (each config, production, test, developer, etc gets a folder in here, and when building Jars and Wars the correct set is copied across)
/extras - other stuff
/extras/resources - resources that should be included within generated Jars, e.g., icons

with

/websites - Web related content and configurations (each website in its own folder here)
/websites/$site/webcontent - All the web content here
/websites/$site/conf - website related configuration files here (instead of /conf)
/websites/$site/build.xml - ANT build script for website that creates a war, etc

(remember you might have an admin site and a public site for a single project, hence the multi-site configuration within a single project, or even site v1 and site v2, etc)

In the end you have to be a bit flexible depending on the project itself, and whether you use ANT or Maven. I use ANT, and either put the ANT scripts in /build, but they have appeared elsewhere in some projects (like in /websites/ for some).

Answer 7

This folder organization represents evolution of xLim concepts.

You can check it out in this open source project.

Build           - ignored from version control
  Artifact      - build artifacts (grabbed by CC.NET from here)
  Package       - generated zip or install packages
  Test          - all assemblies for unit tests
  Help          - autogenerated documentation
Resource
  Build         - plugins and extensions for NAnt/MSBuild
  Library       - 3rd party dependencies
  Tool
    FxCop
    ILMerge          
    NCover
    NCoverExplorer
    NUnit
    SHFB
    Wix
Samples
  SampleProject1
  SampleProject2  
Source
  Project1
  Project2

  GlobalAssemblyInfo.cs
  VersionAssemblyInfo.cs   - integration server updates this one

Test
  Project1.Tests
  Project2.Tests        

Solution.build        - primary build file
Solution.ccnet        - CruiseControl adapter for the build file
Solution.sln          - Visual Studio

go.cmd                - shortcut for launching the build file locally
readme.txt            - licenses and overview
SharedKey.snk         - for strong naming