Under the dev-support folder, you will find hbase_eclipse_formatter.xml. We encourage you to have this formatter in place in eclipse when editing HBase code. To load it into eclipse:

In addition to the automatic formatting, make sure you follow the style guidelines explained in Section 15.11.5, “Common Patch Feedback”

Also, no @author tags - that's a rule. Quality Javadoc comments are appreciated. And include the Apache license.

Download and install the Subversive plugin.

Set up an SVN Repository target from Section 15.1.1, “SVN”, then check out the code.

If you cloned the project via git, download and install the Git plugin (EGit). Attach to your local git repo (via the Git Repositories window) and you'll be able to see file revision history, generate patches, etc.

The easiest way is to use the m2eclipse plugin for Eclipse. Eclipse Indigo or newer has m2eclipse built-in, or it can be found here:http://www.eclipse.org/m2e/. M2Eclipse provides Maven integration for Eclipse - it even lets you use the direct Maven commands from within Eclipse to compile and test your project.

To import the project, you merely need to go to File->Import...Maven->Existing Maven Projects and then point Eclipse at the HBase root directory; m2eclipse will automatically find all the hbase modules for you.

If you install m2eclipse and import HBase in your workspace, you will have to fix your eclipse Build Path. Remove target folder, add target/generated-jamon and target/generated-sources/java folders. You may also remove from your Build Path the exclusions on the src/main/resources and src/test/resources to avoid error message in the console 'Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-antrun-plugin:1.6:run (default) on project hbase: 'An Ant BuildException has occured: Replace: source file .../target/classes/hbase-default.xml doesn't exist'. This will also reduce the eclipse build cycles and make your life easier when developing.

For those not inclined to use m2eclipse, you can generate the Eclipse files from the command line. First, run (you should only have to do this once):

mvn clean install -DskipTests

and then close Eclipse and execute...

mvn eclipse:eclipse

... from your local HBase project directory in your workspace to generate some new .project and .classpathfiles. Then reopen Eclipse, or refresh your eclipse project (F5), and import the .project file in the HBase directory to a workspace.

The M2_REPO classpath variable needs to be set up for the project. This needs to be set to your local Maven repository, which is usually ~/.m2/repository

Description	Resource	Path	Location	Type
The project cannot be built until build path errors are resolved	hbase		Unknown	Java Problem
Unbound classpath variable: 'M2_REPO/asm/asm/3.1/asm-3.1.jar' in project 'hbase'	hbase		Build path	Build Path Problem
Unbound classpath variable: 'M2_REPO/com/github/stephenc/high-scale-lib/high-scale-lib/1.1.1/high-scale-lib-1.1.1.jar' in project 'hbase'	hbase		Build path	Build Path Problem
Unbound classpath variable: 'M2_REPO/com/google/guava/guava/r09/guava-r09.jar' in project 'hbase'	hbase		Build path	Build Path Problem
Unbound classpath variable: 'M2_REPO/com/google/protobuf/protobuf-java/2.3.0/protobuf-java-2.3.0.jar' in project 'hbase'	hbase		Build path	Build Path Problem Unbound classpath variable:
            

Eclipse will currently complain about Bytes.java. It is not possible to turn these errors off.

Description	Resource	Path	Location	Type
Access restriction: The method arrayBaseOffset(Class) from the type Unsafe is not accessible due to restriction on required library /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Classes/classes.jar	Bytes.java	/hbase/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util	line 1061	Java Problem
Access restriction: The method arrayIndexScale(Class) from the type Unsafe is not accessible due to restriction on required library /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Classes/classes.jar	Bytes.java	/hbase/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util	line 1064	Java Problem
Access restriction: The method getLong(Object, long) from the type Unsafe is not accessible due to restriction on required library /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Classes/classes.jar	Bytes.java	/hbase/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util	line 1111	Java Problem
             

For additional information on setting up Eclipse for HBase development on Windows, see Michael Morello's blog on the topic.