Some Eclipse Foundation services are deprecated, or will be soon. Please ensure you've read this important communication.

Bug 324499

Summary:	bin directory naming convention conflicts with standard use
Product:	[Eclipse Project] JDT	Reporter:	Andrew Taylor <andy>
Component:	Core	Assignee:	Jay Arthanareeswaran <jarthana>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	P3	CC:	Olivier_Thomann, stephan.herrmann
Version:	3.7
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:	stalebug

Description Andrew Taylor

2010-09-03 19:05:53 EDT

Build Identifier: 20100617-1415

The naming of the bin directory is not consistent with unix naming conventions, and can cause conflict with unix-like project layout.  Typically /bin is used for executable binaries, but eclipse uses it (by default) for compiled class files.  If the project uses a unix layout, binaries will be in bin, and if a new project is created which overlays such a layout, the default directory for the build files is bin/.  If this is not changed at the very first step, the pre-existing contents of bin will be deleted and are unrecoverable.  

I know it's a pretty deep change, but might I suggest build/?  I use the unix convention for project templates, and beginners (and mysqelf) are always missing the first step of build directory renaming.  I could (and probably will) change the bin/ dir to something else in my template, but that does not change the fact that it is misnamed (in my understanding) and that others may also be seeing this problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. create a dir in workspace with bin/ directory and contents
2. create a new java project with default settings with same name as directory
3. preexisting bin/ contents will be overwritten

Comment 1 Ayushman Jain

2010-09-06 02:09:22 EDT

Jay/Olivier, what is your take on this?

Comment 2 Stephan Herrmann

2010-09-07 06:59:34 EDT

Some unsolicited deliberations:

- Unifying naming schemes across all platforms is close to impossible

- Is it actually a common case to have both Java and true binary
  (compiled from some other language like C) within the same project?

- Perhaps the point where Eclipse could help is this: when creating a project
  from an existing directory structure, a warning/question could be issued
  if an output folder already exists and has some content. This seems to
  be a more general solution than changing a default name.

Comment 3 Andrew Taylor

2010-09-07 10:59:51 EDT

A prompt before overwrite sounds like a great idea to me.

Comment 4 Olivier Thomann

2010-09-07 11:04:24 EDT

(In reply to comment #2)
> Some unsolicited deliberations:
> - Unifying naming schemes across all platforms is close to impossible
Agree.

> - Perhaps the point where Eclipse could help is this: when creating a project
>   from an existing directory structure, a warning/question could be issued
>   if an output folder already exists and has some content. This seems to
>   be a more general solution than changing a default name.
Yes, we should prevent data from being lost.
Jay, please investigate.

Comment 5 Eclipse Genie

2018-10-03 09:12:33 EDT

This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet.

If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant.

--
The automated Eclipse Genie.