Force.com IDE Developer Guide
jAbout Package.xml
The package.xml file, also known as the project manifest, is a control file that determines the set of metadata components to retrieve or deploy in a project. If you are looking at the Package Explorer, this file is located in the src folder.
If your Force.com project is associated with a particular server-side package (as specified in the <fullName> element), the server determines what components are listed in package.xml and any user changes to the file will be overwritten.
The following XML elements may be defined in package.xml:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| <fullName> | Optional. The name of a server-side package associated with the project. If the <fullName> field is present, all components in the package will be downloaded into the project, and new components created from the IDE will be added to that package. |
| <types> | This element contains one or more <members> tags and one <name> tag, and is used to list the metadata components of a certain type to retrieve or deploy. |
| <members> | The full name of a component. There is one <members> element defined for each component in the directory. You can replace the value in this member with the wildcard character * (asterisk) instead of listing each member separately. This is a child element of <types>. |
| <name> | Contains the type of the component, for example CustomObject or Profile. There is one name defined for each component type in the directory. This is a child element of <types>. |
| <version> | The Metadata API version number of the files being retrieved or deployed. When deploying, all the files must conform to the same version of the Metadata API. |