Copy an existing folder into newly created project in Eclipse workspace

Question

I am developing an Eclipse plug-in wherein I am trying to get input from the user through the Wizard.
After pressing the finish button in the wizard, I'm creating a project in the workspace using the IWorkspace, IProject etc. interfaces.

I want to copy an existing folder (which may further contain sub-folders and files) into the newly created project and show that in the workspace. The folder is not an Eclipse project.

Is there any way to do this?

Rüdiger Herrmann Rüdiger Herrmann · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-16T11:46:42

A quick-and-dirty solution would copy the existing folder (and all its contents) to the desired location underneath the project location and refresh the project afterwards.

For example:

IProject project = ...
IPath location = project.getLocation();
Files.copy( pathToExistingFolder, location.toFile().toPath() );
project.refreshLocal( IResource.DEPTH_INFINITE, null );

A more appropriate solution would traverse the existing folder and create a copy of each file and folder found therein.

To create a new file,use

IProject project = ...
IFile file = project.getFile( "path/relative/to/prooject" );
file.create( inputStream, IResource.NONE, null );
// or, to override and existing file (file.eists() == true):
file.setContents( inputStream, IResource.NONE, null );

The inputStream is assumed to be backed by the currently traversed file from the existing files folder.

To create a new folder, use

IProject project = ...
IFolder folder = project.getFolder( "path/relative/to/prooject" );
folder.create( IResource.NONE, true, null );

I further assume that your existing files will ultimately end up being stored in a (jared) plug-in. In this case, the latter approach is the only viable as it lets you supply the folder structure and file contents from the plug-in storage.

The Plugin Development Environment (PDE) provides extension points and API to manage and execute templates during project-creation. While you certainly wouldn't want to depend on plug-ins from the PDE, you may want to have a look at the sources: https://github.com/eclipse/eclipse.pde.ui/tree/master/ui/org.eclipse.pde.ui/src/org/eclipse/pde/ui/templates

Copy an existing folder into newly created project in Eclipse workspace

1 Answers