If I decide to delete a project from my workspace, I hit delete and get this dialog:

delete project contents on disk (cannot be undone)

If I press OK, then my workspace will not list that project anymore. But what about this ‘Delete project content on disk (cannot be undone)‘ check box?

That ‘cannot be undone‘ sounds scary, and it is to some extend. At least on Windows, the files will *not* end up in the recycle bin, so better to know what it really does.

What it does: it deletes the files the project folder. So if the project folder is inside the workspace, that folder will be gone. Definitely gone.

Same applies if you have imported the project and I have *not* copied it into the workspace. Means the project shows up in the workspace, but the project folder is actually *outside* that workspace. If I delete that project and enable the check box, then that project folder will be deleted. It is gone.

So far, so clear. And consequent. But what about linked files? I can create link to files and folders:

Link Files and Folders

Then the linked files and folders will show up with a tiny arrow in the icon:

Linked Folder

So in my above example I have a link to a physical folder with a physical file. What I would expect is that if I delete that project, it will delete the link (and only the link), but will keep my physical file(s).

You can try it out yourself, but this is exactly what Eclipse does: it only deletes the link, but not the destination (physical) file(s). Good :-).

Happy Deleting 🙂