CODEWITHSUNDEEP
eclipse
Surya Kasturi
Surya Kasturi

Reputation: 4753

Does Eclipse store any information out of its directory?

I have used Eclipse Indigo (C/C++) for sometime along with PyDev Plugin (for Python). As I messed up with the IDE (tried to tweak some core files, for fun!), I thought to install a fresh one and this time I downloaded Eclipse Indigo (for Java).

Eclipse (C/C++) was placed in C:/

Eclipse (Java) was even placed in C:/

Now when I opened Eclipse (Java), I observed two things:

  1. The Eclipse's title bar still showing <C/C++ Eclipse>
  2. There was a python's project file still opened up which I worked on Eclipse C/C++ IDE. Also, there was an PyDev's error popped up (mentioning it wasn't installed).

I have verified "Installed Plugins" list and didn't find any plugin related to C/C++ or python.

Now, I have got one question:

As I searched over google and found that Eclipse doesn't store anything beyond its directory, How does this above things are showing up??

There might be some Temp/ Cache files stored. However, I searched my drive with "Eclipse" and "PyDev" as keywords and found nothing.

I even searched for registry keys but couldn't find anything.

What exactly is happening and how do remove Eclipse completely?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1390

Answers (1)

pcdavid
pcdavid

Reputation: 306

TL;DR: using the new Eclipse (Java), select "File > Switch Workspace... > Other...", and create a new directory (e.g. java-wks) for all projects you will do using the new Eclipse.

The long explanantion is that Eclipse stores data in two locations:

  1. The eclipse installation directory itself: contains the plug-ins you install (including the ones already installed in the package you downloaded) and some runtime configuration parameters (see eclipse/config.ini) related to how Eclipse itself should run (e.g. where to find the JRE to execute Eclipse itself, how much memory to allocate etc.)
  2. The workspace(s), where your data (projects and source code) and all personal configuration parameters are stored. This is where Eclipse remembers where your source code is, which file(s) where opened when you last exited, which perspective was active (in your case C/C++ Eclipse), your preferences, launch configurations, breakpoints, etc.

For each Eclipse installation on your system (eclipse folder), you can have as many workspaces as you want (it helps to isolate work). There are various ways to select the workspace location: using the -data <path-to-workspace> option on the command-line, using the popup Eclipse normally shows when starting up (but you may have disabled it), or using "File > Switch Workspace...".

You can also use the same workspace from different Eclipse installations (though not at the same time), but things will not work well if you have different plug-ins installed in each: if one installation stores in the workspace "this is a Python project, and the current perspective is C/++", and the other installation does not have the Python and/or C++ plug-ins installed, it will not known what to do with these info. This is why you see the errors you reported.

For your case, my guess is that under Windows the default workspace location is somewhere in your home directory, and the new (Java) Eclipse is using that, but failing to make sense of the Python and C++ related preferences and projects the previous Eclipse stored there. You need to use a fresh workspace not "polluted" with Python and C++ stuff if you want the Java Eclipse to work without errors (or install the Python and C++ plug-ins in the new Eclipse). You may want to enable the Prompt for workspace on startup preference (in "General > Startup and Shutdown > Workspaces") if it is not to control this easily each time Eclipse starts.

Upvotes: 5

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