» Quick Tip: Convert an Eclipse “General” Project to a Java Project

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Dec 05

Quick Tip: Convert an Eclipse “General” Project to a Java Project

Tag: eclipse, java — pmularien @ 6:57 am

I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally created a General project instead of a Java project, and it always bugged me that you couldn’t convert from General to Java without starting over.

The quick and easy hack is explained well here. Open the relevant .project file and add the following (note that you don’t need the <natures> element if one is already there):

    <natures>
        <nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature>
    </natures>

It’s too bad you can’t “Add Java Project Nature” from within the Eclipse UI

Make sure you do this with the project closed!

8 Responses to “Quick Tip: Convert an Eclipse “General” Project to a Java Project”

noon says:
December 5th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

If you’re using Maven2, you can add Eclipse natures in Maven2 eclipse-plugin settings
noon says:
December 5th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

If you’re using maven2, you can add Eclipse natures in Maven2 Eclipse plugin settings.
Marcos Silva Pereira says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

I do that without restarting Eclipse.

+1 for the lack of “add java nature”.

Kind Regards
Marcos Silva Pereira says:
December 5th, 2007 at 11:45 pm

Hum, there is an issue for that:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=102527
Mike Dalsey says:
May 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

This informations was tremendously helpful to me. Thank you.
Fuzzy says:
May 28th, 2009 at 9:06 am

thanks! very very helpful.
Ralf says:
June 19th, 2009 at 7:21 am

Hi,

I had to modify to run a class as Application in Eclipse 3.4.

org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder
Ralf says:
June 19th, 2009 at 7:25 am

Hi,

I had to modify <buildSpec/> to run a class as Application in Eclipse 3.4.

<buildSpec>
<buildCommand>
<name>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder</name>
<arguments>
</arguments>
</buildCommand>
</buildSpec>