Sönke Rohde » Eclipse

GIT Tips and Tools

Sönke — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:05:53 +0000

If you don’t know GIT yet it is a software version control system like Subversion, CVS or Perforce. It was primary developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development. I have started using GIT in the beginning of 2009 and I must say that after a not so small learning curve I really like it and see all the benefits especially when it comes to collaboration.

There are alternatives but GitHub is currently the best service to use GIT. You can host open source projects for free and the pricing for private projects is not too expensive. Check out my GitHub profile with my open source projects here.

To get started you should first install GIT on your machine and read the docs.

The tooling support around GIT is perhaps not as extensive like for other VCS yet, so if you are afraid of using the console GIT might not be right for you. However, there are already great tools around but for many things I am still using the Terminal.

Custom Bash Prompt

I am using a custom bash prompt which indicates on which branch you are and further color highlighting helps to keep track:

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Eclipse Plugin

My main IDE is Eclipse with Flash Builder or FDT so the Eclipse EGIT plugin is really a must have:

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Merge Tool

Merging is an important task when working in a team. GIT is really flexible and you can configure it to use 3rd party apps for merging. I am not a big Perforce fan but the free p4merge tool is really great. Check out the blog post by Andy McIntosh for a detailed explanation how to set it up.

GitX

GitX is maybe the best tool to visualize the branch history but I must say that I don’t use it in my daily work. It can also be used to create commits and revert changes etc.

Links

Commands

If you are new to GIT it is hard to remember all the different commands. Here a list of commands which I use very often also as a reference for me

Create a local repository:

# clone an existing repository
git clone [GITHUB_CLONE_URL]
 
# or do it the long way:
mkdir [PROJECT_DIR]
cd [PROJECT_DIR]
git init
touch README
git add README
git commit -m 'first commit'
git remote add origin [GITHUB_CLONE_URL]
git push origin master

Changes and Commits:

# To see which files are changed and maybe not added yet to the repository use
git status
# Add a file to the repository
git add [FILE]
# or to add all untracked files
git add .
 
# revert a change
git checkout -- [FILE]
 
# when you are ready with a change
git commit -am "[CHANGE_DESCRIPTION]"
# a commit is only local so when you want to push it to the server
git push origin [REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]

Branches:

# Create remote branch
git push origin master:[REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]
# Checkout and track remote branch
git checkout --track -b [LOCAL_BRANCH_NAME] origin/[REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME]
 
# local branch list
git branch -l
# remote branch list
git branch -r

Tags: Every time you make a release or reach a milestone creating a tag is a good idea.

# Create tag
git tag -a [TAG_NAME] -m "[TAG_DESCRIPTION]"
# Push tag
git push --tags origin master

Merge: You should work on a branch when implementing a new feature or story. If you are done you should merge this into the main branch.

# Switch to feature/story branch
git checkout [STORY_BRANCH]
# make changes and when done
git commit -am "[DESCRIPTION]"
# switch to master
git checkout master
# get all changes from master
git pull
# switch to story branch
git checkout [STORY_BRANCH]
# rebase story branch with master changes
git rebase master
# maybe solve conflicts
git mergetool
# switch back to master
git checkout master
# finally we can merge it in and there should be no conflict
git merge [STORY_BRANCH]
git push

Stash: When you have changes in your working directory and want to switch to another branch you can stash your changes.

# Create stash
git stash
# Apply
git stash apply

When you migrate a project from SVN to GIT this comes in handy:

find . -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

btw: GIT has only one .git directory and not one for every directory like SVN

If you have some commands which are important on a daily base please drop a comment so I can extend this post.

Eclipse Goodies

Sönke — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:03:21 +0000

I thought I share some Eclipse goodies which might simplify your workflow if you use Eclipse/Flex Builder on a daily base and don’t know them yet.

Linked Resource

Sometimes you can not avoid absolute paths within your Flex/AIR project settings (.project, .actionScriptProperties, .flexProperties) because you define for instance an include for a library.

When you put these project settings under version control you have got a problem as the absolute paths only works on your machine and especially cross operation system like Windows and OS X.

The solution is to use the Linked Resources feature of Eclipse:

DOCUMENTS is there per default and I added CATALINA_HOME to specify the location where I installed Tomcat. When you now use a path in your property files like for instance .actionScriptProperties you can now use ${CATALINA_HOME} or Eclipse even substitutes the paths with the linked resource variable automatically for you.

Memory / Heap Size

Edit your eclipse.ini (on Mac show package contents) to increase the memory you give to Eclipse which will increase the performance a lot. My eclipse.ini looks like this but figure out what works for your machine depending on the Ram you have:

-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize256m
-vmargs
-Xms512m
-Xmx768m
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

It is always good to see how many memory Eclipse uses so enable it in the Preferences->General->Show heap status and after that you see the info on the bottom right of your Eclipse window:

If you start Ant scripts from Eclipse which is the way I use it all the time you can also run out of memory and I posted a couple of weeks ago how you can change the settings.

Label Decorations

If you work with a version control system (if not you should start today) Label Decorations help a lot to have a quick view on the status of a file.

Working Set

I like to work with one workspace because I have to re-configure all settings if I would switch to another workspace location. When you have many projects in your workspace it is easy to loose focus so try to group you projects into Working Sets.

Link with Editor

Ok, this is a small one but it helps if you don’t know it. The navigator view has a little icon with two yellow arrow in opposite direction. Click it and now every time you select a file tab in the editor on the right side the corresponding file in the navigator get’s selected so you know were you are.

Shortcuts

If you see CTRL/CMD it is control-key on Windows and CMD aka Apple on OS X. Some shortcuts are not different cross this operation systems.

Open Resource (CTRL/CMD-SHIFT-O): Let’s you browse all files in your workspace and while you start typing the files are filtered. This dialog also support wildcards like ? and *.
F11: Run Debug
CTRL-F11: Run
CTRL-H: Search
CTRL/CMD-G: Find declarations
CTRL/CMD-SHIFT-G: Find references
CTRL/CMD-ALT-G: Find text
CTRL-O: Quick Outline

Clean and unexpected problems

Sometimes you focus a situation in Eclipse where you say “This can’t be!” but obviously it can. So when you have unexpected problems first try to clean the affected projects (Project->Clean). If this does not help close Eclipse and restart it via console with the parameter “-clean”. If this does not help maybe your workspace is corrupted so try to switch to a new workspace. The last step to nail down Eclipse problems is a fresh clean Eclipse download and start from the beginning which is also not that much of work since Eclipse does not depend on an installation routine.

Do you have some Eclipse goodies to share?

Change Eclipse Ant settings when you run out of memory

Sönke — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:57:52 +0000

I use Ant a lot to compile AIR or Flex projects. When it comes to larger projects (especially when you compile multiple modules and libraries) you have to increase the amount of memory Ant is allowed to use. Otherwise you can get an exception like this:

[mxmlc] Loading configuration file PATH_TO_YOUR_SDK/flex_sdk_3.0.2.2095/frameworks/air-config.xml
[mxmlc] Error: PermGen space
[mxmlc] java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space
[mxmlc] at java.lang.String.intern(Native Method)
[mxmlc] …

In Eclipse open menu: Run->External Tools->Open External Tools Dialog…
Select the build script you want to change on the left
Select the JRE tab on the right
Set the following as VM arguments: -Xms768m -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m

These values work for me but you might want to change it to match your environment and project size.

Update: List of JVM options (via Cornel Creanga)

Change project from Flex to AIR

Sönke — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:03:58 +0000

When you started with a Flex project for the browser and you decide to switch to AIR or vice versa you have to change the Flex Builder project settings.

In the application MXML you have to switch the root node from Application to WindowedApplication

In the .actionScriptProperties you have to change useApolloConfig=”true/false”.

If you switch from Flex to AIR add an application descriptor file.

For AIR projects the .project file needs the apollonature meaning com.adobe.flexbuilder.apollo.apollonature as the first of the three natures (before flexnature and actionscriptnature). Sometimes I had a refresh problem when I opened the project settings (every entry showed up twice) after editing these files so better close and re-open the project, re-build the project and the switch should be done.

Pimp your Flex Builder

Sönke — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:59:33 +0000

InsideRIA posted an article about Flex Builder Enhancements. I am already using the TODO/FIXME Plugin by Dirk Eismann for a long time now which works really cool.

I did not know the Snippets plugin which I now also tried out. The usability is not that straight forward but it also does the job.

If you like to import my snippets.xml which includes a for loop and a bindable getter/setter.

RDT – Ruby meets Eclipse

Sönke — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:10:09 +0000

There is an Eclipse Plugin for Ruby called RDT.
I found a very good article on this via slashdot: Using the Ruby Development Tools plug-in for Eclipse