Java autogenerated getters-setters in project - best practice - java

Our project has started newly and wanted to know some of the best practices followed in industry. We have generated lot of DTOs(getters and setters) code for webservices using JaxB. we keep all the DTO classes along with regular pojos(logic written), its looks like large project due to this auto-generated code, also for code coverage it considers these classes also.
I am keen to know that these classes should be as a jar file in classpath or it should be as classes in project.
Thanks in Advance,
Madhavi

If your project uses Maven (or something similar) I would advise having the code generation and the generated code in a separate module of a multi module project.
This way the generated stuff is out of the way of the hand crafted code. You can also set up your Maven build process to then build this module first and the rest of the code can rely on the resulting artefact, be it a jar or something else.
You could also regenerate the generated code on each new build this way. Although this can be a lengthy process, depending on the service.

Generated files should not be mixed with your written files.
A common approach is to generate them to the target folder, e.g. target/generated-sources or something similiar. Of course, if they are rarely changed, you could also put them in a jar file that you import into your project.

I think its better to keep them in jar. As its auto generated code and no one is supposed to change. Whenever regenerated include new jar.

Related

SBT: Java Annotation Processors and compileIncremental error

I’m using the immutables.org and mapstruct annotation processors in my sbt project (I've moved them to subprojects, so they don't interfere with each other).
Sometimes, compiling my project fails in compileIncremental because the annotation processor would create a new file, but the compiler already read the previously generated file or I changed my interface in src/main/java but the (previously) generated sources still "implement" the old interface (they would be overwritten, but that happens only after processing the sources in src/main/java).
My workaround was to create a task that deletes the generated sources beforehand for which "(compile in Compile)" would depend on.
Is there another way to do this? like disabling compileIncremental for one single project? or specifying the order of compilation? (like first normal sources, then unmanagedSources)
Alternatively finding out if the sourceFiles really changed and only then deleting the generated sources would also work for me, but I’m not sure how to approach that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Dominik

How to generate a Jar with only class definitions and methods using Maven?

I've got a project and want to share an API that can be used for building a plugin for my application.
Now I don't want to share the full source code but only class definitions and member declarations without their body.
I've seen dependencies before that without downloading the sources the IDE I'm using already knows the structure. That is what I'm going for.
A jar file already does most of what you want, as it does, if not obfuscated, contain all the class and method names in a format that will be understood by any Java IDE.
The rest can be done by preparing and delivering a javadoc jar.

Java: Resolve namespace conflict

We have a jar that we lost the source code to. I decompiled the jar and created new source from it. I want to then verify that the source code and the old jar have the same behavior. I am writing unit tests to do the verification the problem is that they both have same namespace / class name so I do not know how to disambiguate the old jar and the new source code. What can I do or is it impossible?
You need to only have one version on the class path at once to guarantee that you are running that version of the code. Develop your unit test separate from the code so you can drop in either version.
Give the new source a temporary namespace for testing purposes. Then instead of import, you can refer your new classes as:
com.yourfirm.test.packagename.TheClassName
the old ones can be simply imported and refered to as TheClassName. This way you can tell by looking at your test cases which is which.
Or simply run the tests with -cp oldpackage.jar and then -cp newpackage.jar.
It's possible, but you have to mess around with class loading. Instead of putting either of the jars on the classpath, you'll need to load them at runtime. Check out JCL for a library to allow you to do this. (Disclaimer: I have never used JCL.)
Basically, each test would have to load the class from the old JAR, grab the results of the method you're testing, then unload that JAR, load up the new one, run the same method against the new version, and compare the results.
I'd change which classes are being tested at runtime with the classpath. This approach would be less error-prone in terms of ensuring that you're running the same test code against both binaries. Otherwise you introduce more complexity around whether the tests are correct.
It sounds like you are trying to execute the tests against both jars at the same time. I don't know of a way to disambiguate the old/new jars if they are both in the classpath.
If your unit tests output results to stdout/stderr, you could run the tests against the original jar and save the results. Then run the tests against the new jar and save the results in a separate file. Then diff the files.
Another approach would be to refactor the new source code so that it has a unique namespace. You could then test against both jars at the same time, but it could be a lot of work to make existing programs use the new jar.
If you run your tests via ant (Junit-task), you can control the ant classpath seperately for both runs (once via jar, once via fileset of classes).

Minimizing jar dependency sizes

an application I have written uses several third party jars. Sometimes only a small portion of the entire 50kB to 1.7mB jar is used - one or two function calls or classes.
What is the best way to reduce the jar sizes. Should I download the sources and build a jar with just the classes I need? What existing tools can help automate this (ex I briefly looked at http://code.google.com/p/jarjar/)?
Thank you
Edit 1:
I would like to lower the size of my third party 'official' jars like swingx-1.6.jar (1.4 MB), set-3.6 (1.7 MB) glazedlists-1.8.jar (820kB) , etc. so that they only contain the bare minimum classes I need
Edit 2:
Minimizing a jar by hand or by using a program like proguard is further complicated if the library uses reflection.
Injection with google guice does not work anymore after obfuscation with proguard
The answer by cletus on another post is very good How to determine which classes are used by a Java program?
Proguard would be an option. It can eliminate unused classes and methods. You can also use it to obfuscate, which can further reduce the size of your final jar. Be aware that class loading by name is liable to break unless care is taken to keep the affected classes unobfuscated.
I've found Proguard quite effective - can be a bit cryptic to understand at the outset. But I don't have any experience with similar to offer a comparison.
First of all, if you use only one class from JAR file this does not mean that this class does not use other classed from that JAR.
The option for you, if you use open source JARs, is to get sources of that JAR, attach them to your project, remove unnecessary stuff and build the changes by yourself.
You could add GenJar as an Ant task and use it to build the JAR. As it says on the library's home page,
GenJar is a specialized Ant task that
builds jar files based on class
dependencies rather than simply the
contents of a directory.
You can find it on SourceForge.

java plugin specification via properties file

I have a project which I want to add plugins. I have all the interfaces/factories/etc. setup (my gateway interface is called ApplicationMonitorFactory), I just need to make a way to locate/activate the plugin. My configuration file is a java properties file.
I think what I need to do is:
find a good way to specify a set of one or more plugins
for each plugin, run it
1. find a good way to specify a set of one or more plugins
something like:
application.plugins=foo-monitor.jar,bar-monitor.jar
I think maybe it's just best to specify a list of jar files; for each jar file specified, the implication is that it contains one or more classes which implement ApplicationMonitorFactory, and these are the ones that will be instantiated. (I might also add an annotation #ApplicationMonitorPlugin so that a .jar file can have a test ApplicationMonitorFactory that does not get instantiated)
Does this sound reasonable?
2. for each plugin, run it
I did this once a while back, and if I remember right I think I need to use a custom classloader to add the appropriate .jar file to the classpath dynamically. Or is there an easier way?
Could I suggest using OSGI instead? If it's a serverside project, something like Apache Karaf gives you quite a lot out of the box in terms of plugin deployment and specification.
To answer the questions based on what you have at the moment:
1. find a good way to specify a set of one or more plugins
The properties file approach is fine. You may want to just be able to drop plugins into a folder that you monitor if you want hot deploy. Just having 1 jar file for a plugin does limit plugin developers to packaging all of their dependencies into a single jar file (maven shade plugin is useful for this). The annotation approach should work (the approach that Servlet 3.0 uses). Using OSGI, you'd have a manifest file with a Bundle-Activator property that would reference the plugin class that should be instantiated.
2. for each plugin, run it
Yes, you would need to fire up a class loader for the Jar files. This is where things get a bit hairier. It's easy enough to do but Class loading has all sorts of gotcha's. This is where OSGI would really help, even though it is a bit of an upfront cost.

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