Build nuisance: RevisionAccessor.java is generated by build. Unclear if it needs to be committed.

[orionlee]

Build process automatically (re-)generates src/org/aavso/tools/vstar/ui/resources/RevisionAccessor.java, containing revision information.

RevisionAccessor.java is thus modified and appears as a modified file that needs to be committed. It is unclear if / when it should be committed.

In principle, since the fie is generated by build (ant build [*]), it should not need to be in the git repo to begin with. However, some workflows, e.g., eclipse build, do not generate it (because they are not ant driven). and will breakdown if we simply remove it from git repo (and add it to .gitignore list).

[*] It's in compile_src target, before the actual javac happens

VStar/build.xml

Lines 76 to 91 in 0115ad7

	<target name="compile_src" depends="init,antlr4" description="Compile the source">
	<!-- Update git revision -->
	<exec executable="git" outputproperty="git.revision" failifexecutionfails="false" errorproperty="">
	<arg value="rev-parse" />
	<arg value="--short" />
	<arg value="HEAD" />
	</exec>
	<condition property="git_revision" value="${git.revision}" else="unknown">
	<and>
	<isset property="git.revision"/>
	<length string="${git.revision}" trim="yes" length="0" when="greater" />
	</and>
	</condition>
	<copy file="${ui_resources}/RevisionAccessor.java.template" tofile="${ui_resources}/RevisionAccessor.java" overwrite="true" />
	<replace file="${ui_resources}/RevisionAccessor.java" token="@revision@" value="${git_revision}" />
	<replace file="${ui_resources}/RevisionAccessor.java" token="@build_time@" value="${BUILD_TIME}" />

[orionlee]

One workaround to the problem is to

1. generate and store the revision information in a resource file to be bundled to the jar
2. modify RevisionAccessor.java to read the values from the resource file
3. Further RevisionAccessor.java so that if the resource file is missing (for eclipse build case), it does not throw exception, and provide some dummy placeholder value instead.

[dbenn]

This seems like a good solution @orionlee