Making Eclipse Ignore .svn Entries in the Build Path

Ever had this problem? – you have checked in your Eclipse project Java code in Subversion (SVN) and all of a sudden the bin/ directory is peppered with .svn/ directories, and to make matters worse, TortoiseSVN picks this up and indicates as if the bin/ directory has been checked in. I’ll tell you how to fix this.

First, right click on the project name and select “Properties”. Go to the “Java Build Path” settings. You should see the source tab as shown below.

Java Build Path Entries

Under each source path entry, click on the “Excluded:” item and then click on “Edit…” button. A new dialog box will open. Under the “Exclusion patterns:” section, click on “Add…” and enter the following:

**/.svn/*

Repeat this for all source path entries. Now Eclipse won’t generate the .svn entries inside the binary folders. To make TortoiseSVN ignore the bin/ directory all together, right click on it and select “TortoiseSVN->Add to Ignore List”. Now this directory won’t show up when you do future commits!

3 Replies to “Making Eclipse Ignore .svn Entries in the Build Path

  1. Awesome. I’ve been dealing with this Eclipse-SVN integration headache for some time now. A co-worker suggested re-importing the trunk for the project. He cited something about an esoteric Eclipse bug that picked up on the history of the ‘bin’ directory ever being checked in.
    I was dreading losing the history in the hopes of eliminating the headache. I’m elated to learn of a more elegant solution.

  2. You just fixed something I had been working on for almost two weeks. I couldn’t even figure out how the stuff was being ‘auto checked in’ and why it didn’t have a log for the item. You sir, rock!

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