What's the difference between `Eclipse/Project/Clean...` and `Eclipse/Project/Refresh (F5)`?

Question

What's the difference between

"Eclipse/Project/Clean..."

and

"Eclipse/Project/Refresh (F5)"

I often have to "rebuild" my workspace that contains few inter-dependent projects, and I am unsure which is the best way to make a clean start?

Answer 1

As mentioned here

Refresh analyses the source-files to check if any changes were made from outside Eclipse, and if so, compiles files that were changed.

Clean on the other hand removes all compiled classes and forces recompilation of the whole project (or workspace).

Answer 2

Clean deleted the generated resources like compiled classes and makes sure that latest code base is recompiled again where as

Refresh syncs the eclipse project from the actual folder structure which makes sure that any changes done to files and/or folder structure is available to eclipse...

Answer 3

Clean will clean all the compiled files from the selected projects. It will trigger a rebuild if Build Automatically (in the project menu) is enabled.

Refresh will reload the files in the project from the filesystem.

For your question, Clean will be the answer. Make sure that you have Build Automatically checked.