Why is eclipse trying to compile files not in my build path?

Question

I have a rather large project which contains a number of third-party dependencies which are linked via svn:externals. These include tomcat and blazeDS, which are packaged by our installer via ant. The problem is that these projects contain dozens of sample JSP pages, and eclipse chokes on them when trying to build the project, producing hundreds of errors.

Our project setup is something like this:

src/
    main/
    test/
third-party/
    blazeDS/
    tomcat/
    etc.

Now, in eclipse, my project's build path is set to only include subfolders in src/main and src/test. Yet, for some reason, it still tries to build everything beneath third-party. I have clicked on third-party and selected "remove from build path", but this had no effect. I even tried adding the third-party folder to the build path, and then excluding "", "/*", and "*/.jsp", but again, to no effect.

What is going on here?

Edit: Thanks for the suggestions, though unfortunately, they don't seem to fix the issue. I don't have the CheckStyle plugin installed (I'm using Eclipse 3.4.1 with the only custom plugins being subclipse and flex builder), and I tried disabling all extra builders except for Java, but the errors are still being thrown.

Answer 1

It could be that your eclipse project is configured to have extra Builders. You can check that in the project's properties (right-click on project -> Properties -> Builders).

Answer 2

I usually have this kind of issue with CheckStyle plugin, where you need to specify in its properties (right-click on project -> Properties -> CheckStyle):

"Exclude from check Files non located in a source directory"

Otherwise it does analyze (and reports warning/errors on) files which are not candidate to be compiled in the first place.

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Couple of other suggestions:

• try restarting your eclipse with the -clean option (eclipse software version of 'did you reboot it ?' ;) ). Beware it can reset your workspace perspectives, so you may want to try that with a copy of your workspace instead.
• try deleting your project (your workspace reference of your project, not its actual content), and reimporting it (beware of your custom launchers, they may get removed in the process).
• check if you do not have any linked directory within src or test, which would point to thirdparty(/**): that would explain the unwanted compilation.