version control - Synchronizing Eclipse .classpath in code repository

Question

My team handles several Java projects using Eclipse, and shares the code using a code repository.

When a developer adds, removes or updates a jar file, the build is broken for everybody else, until they update their build path in Eclipse. This process involves cumbersome email synchronization.

For several reasons, we have decided not to commit the .classpath file to the repo. Instead, we came up with the following idea: Each project will have a committed file, say jars.list, which contains a list of jar files (and patterns). A script will convert this file into a local .classpath for eclipse. Whenever a developer changes its jars, it is his or her responsibility to change jars.list and commit it.

Is this a reasonable solution? Are there any existing solutions for this problem?

Answer 1

Eclipse .project and .classpath files are intended/designed to be checked into a version control repository (cvs, svn, git, etc). See this page in the Eclipse wiki.

There are various ways to keep the .classpath file "clean" (ie, free from absolute paths), which I mentioned in the Comments section above.