How standard and interchangeable are XML config files?

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Ramon F Herrera - 31 Oct 2007 04:03 GMT

I just began playing with NetBeans. My previous IDE was the
traditional (non-Eclipsized) Borland JBuilder, which used a
configuration file called <project_name>.jpx with XML lines inside.

NB creates a folder called 'nbproject' which contains inside a file
called 'project.xml'. That constitutes a bare bones, minimum project.

How standard are those XML configuration files? Can a file created by
NetBeans be read and interpreted by Eclipse, and vice versa?

-Ramon

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Arne Vajhøj - 31 Oct 2007 04:12 GMT

> I just began playing with NetBeans. My previous IDE was the
> traditional (non-Eclipsized) Borland JBuilder, which used a
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> How standard are those XML configuration files? Can a file created by
> NetBeans be read and interpreted by Eclipse, and vice versa?

Not standard at all.

The standards are ant and maven build files.

Bot Eclipse and NetBeans support ant build files.

Arne

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Lew - 31 Oct 2007 05:22 GMT

Ramon F Herrera wrote:

>> How standard are those XML configuration files? Can a file created by
>> NetBeans be read and interpreted by Eclipse, and vice versa?

> Not standard at all.
>
> The standards are ant and maven build files.
>
> Bot Eclipse and NetBeans support ant build files.

Not only are project files not portable between IDEs, they're not portable
within the same IDE.

Project files contain very specific information about directory locations,
selected options, libraries and the like. Move a project even to a different
hard drive on the same computer, much less to another machine, much, much less
to a different IDE, and things break.

Here's a typical top-level project directory list from my own NetBeans workspace:

$ ls -1p
build/
build.xml
catalog.xml
CVS/
.cvsignore
dist/
logs/
nbproject/
src/
test/
web/

The .cvsignore file excludes the build/, dist/, and logs/ subdirectories. The
NetBeans-specific build.xml and the nbproject/ directories are checked into a
separate branch of the CVS project repository, not the trunk. Exports of
source to another project workspace, for deployment or parallel development,
always go through version control (VC), never directly between workspaces.
The nbproject branch does not go with them.

If there were multiple nbprojects going for one project, say, were there a
team involved, then each nbproject would go into a separate branch, with the
real project trees like src/ and web/ on the trunk. The workspaces would not
share nbproject branches.

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Lew

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Almond - 31 Oct 2007 06:12 GMT

>Ramon F Herrera wrote:
>>> How standard are those XML configuration files? Can a file created by
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>Project files contain very specific information about directory locations,
>selected options, libraries and the like.

What kind of bullshit is this, herr high-priest?
I thought you could do better than that.

>Move a project even to a different
>hard drive on the same computer, much less to another machine, much, much less
>to a different IDE, and things break.

Wut?

What did you smoke fer breakfast today, yerr holey suckiness?

Do you want me to tell you how to do it?

Enough of this horseshit fer now.

>Here's a typical top-level project directory list from my own NetBeans
> workspace:
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
>real project trees like src/ and web/ on the trunk. The workspaces would not
>share nbproject branches.

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Daniel Pitts - 31 Oct 2007 07:13 GMT

> Ramon F Herrera wrote:
>>> How standard are those XML configuration files? Can a file created by
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> even to a different hard drive on the same computer, much less to
> another machine, much, much less to a different IDE, and things break.

That hasn't been my experience, as long as everything is relative to the
project file. At least with IntelliJ IDEA.

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Lew - 31 Oct 2007 13:47 GMT

Lew wrote:

>> Not only are project files not portable between IDEs, they're not
>> portable within the same IDE.

>> Project files contain very specific information about directory
>> locations, selected options, libraries and the like. Move a project
>> even to a different hard drive on the same computer, much less to
>> another machine, much, much less to a different IDE, and things break.
> That hasn't been my experience, as long as everything is relative to the
> project file. At least with IntelliJ IDEA.

That's a point in favor of IDEA, I suppose.

I'm still recommending that moving projects between directories happen only
through VC, for all the other reasons that apply.

In addition, that lets teammates use their own choice for IDE.

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Lew

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Andrew Thompson - 31 Oct 2007 05:30 GMT

...

>> How standard are those XML configuration files?

...

>The standards are ant and maven build files.
>
>Bot Eclipse and NetBeans support ant build files.

(small point but) Ant does not need an IDE wrapped around it.
Ant build files can be invoked from the command line.
I suppose you could configure programs like TextPad
to launch common Ant tasks, as well..

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Andrew Thompson
http://www.athompson.info/andrew/

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How standard and interchangeable are XML config files?

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