Eclipse cvs setup and check out issues

[Rama Krishna]

I am trying to setup CVS for the first time in my Eclipse IDE. Unfortunately, when I click Team/share Project I get the following error in a new pop up window:

Invalid CVS repository location format:
sspi:username@someOldIP :p ortno...

The thing is, I have no clue where Eclipse is trying to fetch this thing from. I press OK and go forward to let Eclipse use my perfectly working CVS repository. Then, I am stuck at the "Enter Module Name" window as, when I say choose an existing module, it does not fetch or refresh to allow me to choose a module and so I cannot go forward.

However, if I browse the same respositories manually in the same Eclipse any other way I can see all of my source folders without any problem.

Another issue is that, I added our latest source code on our server cvs (CVSNT) and am able to view using Eclipse view repository. However, when I create a new project (or checkout) using cvs, I get stuck at "select a Tag" window. How can we checkout any folder. How do we add a Tag?

Thanks
Radha
[ March 05, 2008: Message edited by: Rama Krishna ]

[Tim Holloway]

It's trying to find modules on server "someOldIP" using TCP/IP port number "portno" and logging into that server (CVS login, which may or may not be the same as OS login) as user "username".

Here's a typical connection string:

:extssh:[e-mail]:22/usr/local/cvsrepo

This would log user "grodnik" into the CVS repository /usr/local/cvsrepo on cvs.mousetech.com over port 22 using the ssh protocol. Actual CVS projects would then be subdirectories of /usr/local/cvsrepo.

I don't recognize the "sspi" protocol in your example. It's not one of the ones that shows up on my list when I create a new repository definition in Eclipse.

If your repository has been intialized by CVS (Eclipse expects to find an existing repository), an empty repo will contain a single module named CVSROOT, which keeps the parameters of the overall repository. Yes, CVS uses itself to keep archives of its own configuration!

To check a project into CVS, you'd select the Team/Share Project menu item and fill in the dialogs. The project would then get checked into CVS.

Checking a project out of CVS isn't much harder. The main thing is whether or not the CVS archive includes Eclipse project definitions (.project and .classpath) and whether you want to use them or use your own local definitions. Based on those criteria, you'd use either the basic "Check out" or "Check out as Project" options.

In CVS, tagging done by attaching a tag to project files. To do that, you'd right-click the file(s) in the CVS Repositories View and select the Tag As Version... or Tag Existing option. One allows the assignment of an initial tag, the other to move the tag to point at later versions of the files.

[Rama Krishna]

Fixed the problem by deleting all the hidden CVS fodlers and then deleting all of the class files that it said could not be committed for some lack of date stamp reason or something. Sorry I did not make a proper note of this error.

Now I was able to add the new repository folder succesfully. Synchronize and commit as well. I made a change and was able to compare changes with that in the server.

When I try to make a change in one of the files from the complete source code that I checked out that using team/commit it pops up a window with an error saying:

committing resource (Time of error: check details)

In details I see
server reported an error while performing the "cvs commit" command:
MyServerSrcFolder: cvs server":
sticky tag 'SomeTag' for the file 'FileToBeCommitted' is not a branch
Please corrrect the above error first.


To check why I am unable to commit my files, I went into wincvs and did a check out of the folder that I added into the repository using eclipse, got the complete source and then changed a file and then did a commit successfully without any issues.

Any help on committing in Eclipse pleaase.
What are tags and branches used for?
[ March 05, 2008: Message edited by: Rama Krishna ]

[Rama Krishna]

All of the folders in dist such as dist/src and dist/war files which are run-time changes in my folder that is deployed in the server appear in the synchronized list. Is there a way to tell the "synchronization" to not look for changes to a particular folder such as the war or dist folders which are created every time we compile or build??

- Solved the problem by selecting a folder and then clicking Team/Synchronize this folder which takes me to synchronization perspective rather than first going to synchronize perspective and then synchronizing the whole source....
[ March 05, 2008: Message edited by: Rama Krishna ]

[Tim Holloway]

The .cvsignore file can be used to tell CVS to ignore files or directories, and it's common to include things like your build directories in it.

There are 2 problems, however:

1. You can't add a directory to a .cvsignore list after any files in that directory have been added to CVS. This is a CVS problem.

2. You can't define a placeholder empty copy of the directory in CVS. This is also a CVS problem. CVS expects all directories in an archive to contain at least one file, even if it's a dummy file.

Tags are used to mark a milestone so that people can pull a project as of a specific point in time using the tag name as a locator. Branches allow you to spin off alternate versions of a project. For example, a project's main branch may contain production releases. Developers might spin off a side branch where they can keep their changes as they work on new features. Eventually, if the feature is going to go into production, they fold those changes into the main branch so that it can be checked out and used as the basis of a production build.

Almost all of your problems are not really Eclipse problems, so what you probably need is a good book on CVS itself. One of the oldest and best is the cedarqvist book, available online. I have the dead tree version, published by Coriolis Press. I'm a big fan of e-books, but for learning a subject, I get more by flipping physical pages.

[Ilja Preuss]

Another popular book on CVS is "Pragmatic Version Control with CVS".

[Rama Krishna]

Thank you for your suggestions. Actually, I could setup Eclipse CVS on our server as fast as I could start believing I may not be able do it. Let me take a look at any free to available e-books and then buy them soon.

I hope tags, branches, and editors in the Eclipse CVS are general and common to all CVS repositories.

Thanks
Rama