Getting Play2.0.x to work with Git Bash on Windows

I unzipped play2.0.4 and created a PLAY_HOME variable. I also made sure to add PLAY_HOME to my PATH variable.

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/development/play-2.0.4
$ echo $PLAY_HOME
C:\development\play-2.0.4

When I tried to run play from the Git Bash shell I ran into below exception. In the past I didn't bother that much and just used the DOS shell as a workaround. But I like to work from one shell only so time to look for a solution.

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/workspaces/scala
$ play
Error during sbt execution: Could not find configuration file 'c:/development/play-2.0.4/framework/sbt/play.boot.properties'.  Searched:
        file:/c:/workspaces/scala/
        file:/C:/Users/nxp10009/
        file:/C:/development/play-2.0.4/framework/sbt/

Luckily someone created a patch to resolve this issue. You can download the gist and unzip it to some folder. It will contain a file named play_cgywin.patch. So it's matter of applying the patch from within Git Bash. It will log an error but play will work nonetheless.

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/development/play-2.0.4
$ patch -p1 < c:/tmp/play_cygwin.patch
patching file `framework/build'
Hunk #1 FAILED at 8.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to framework/build.rej
patching file `play'

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/workspaces/scala
$ play
Getting play console_2.9.1 2.0.4 ...
:: retrieving :: org.scala-sbt#boot-app
        confs: [default]
        5 artifacts copied, 0 already retrieved (3667kB/83ms)
       _            _
 _ __ | | __ _ _  _| |
| '_ \| |/ _' | || |_|
|  __/|_|\____|\__ (_)
|_|            |__/

play! 2.0.4, http://www.playframework.org

SBT Quick start - Part 1

Now that I have Scala and SBT working from GitBash we will setup our first demo project.

$ mkdir demo
$ cd demo
$ mkdir -p src/{main,test}/{java,scala,resources}

Create a script hw.scala and place it under demo/src/scala

/*********** hw.scala ***************/
object Hi {
  def main(args: Array[String]) = println("Demo application says HELLO!")
}

now run sbt -> Running sbt with no command line arguments starts it in interactive mode.

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/workspaces/pelssers/demo
$ sbt
[info] Set current project to default-8388aa (in build file:/C:/workspaces/pelssers/demo/)
> exit  

We still have to create a build.sbt in the project root so let's do this first

name := "demo"

version := "1.0-SNAPSHOT"

scalaVersion := "2.9.2"

If we now rerun sbt again everything seems ok

$ sbt
[info] Set current project to demo (in build file:/C:/workspaces/pelssers/demo/)
> exit

You will now see sbt created a project folder for you. Here we will create a new build.properties file

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/workspaces/pelssers/demo
$ ls -la
total 3
drwxr-xr-x    6 nxp10009 Administ        0 Dec  9 15:13 .
drwxr-xr-x    8 nxp10009 Administ     4096 Dec  9 15:04 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 nxp10009 Administ       70 Dec  9 15:04 build.sbt
drwxr-xr-x    3 nxp10009 Administ        0 Dec  9 15:13 project
drwxr-xr-x    4 nxp10009 Administ        0 Dec  9 15:05 src
drwxr-xr-x    3 nxp10009 Administ        0 Dec  9 15:12 target

$ cd project
$ vi build.properties

sbt.version=0.12.0

Enabling continous build and test

> ~ compile
[success] Total time: 0 s, completed Dec 9, 2012 3:32:39 PM
1. Waiting for source changes... (press enter to interrupt)

Now edit the hw.scala and make a little change:
object Hi {
  def main(args: Array[String]) = println("Demo application says HELLO again!")
}

[info] Compiling 1 Scala source to C:\workspaces\pelssers\demo\target\scala-2.9.2\classes...
[success] Total time: 1 s, completed Dec 9, 2012 3:33:02 PM
2. Waiting for source changes... (press enter to interrupt)

Getting Git Bash and Scala working on windows

I found a great blog post about fixing issues. I already avoid using spaces in directory names so I only ran into the last issue:

nxp10009@NXL01366 /c/development/scala/scala-2.9.2/bin
$ scala
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: scala/tools/nsc/MainGenericRunner
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: scala.tools.nsc.MainGenericRunner
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
        at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)
Could not find the main class: scala.tools.nsc.MainGenericRunner.  Program will exit.

So I only need to create a bash script and add an alias to fix the issue

nxp10009@NXL01366 ~
$ cd ~

nxp10009@NXL01366 ~
$ pwd
/c/Users/nxp10009

nxp10009@NXL01366 ~
$ vi .bashrc

alias scala='scala -nobootcp'

Now exit Git Bash and open a new shell:

nxp10009@NXL01366 ~
$ scala
Welcome to Scala version 2.9.2 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.6.0_32).
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.

scala>