Using a Java Method from another Project - java

Similar questions to this have been asked several times, but none of the answers fits my situation.
I have a Java project which I originally wrote to run on a PC. The classes containing the functional stuff are separate from those containing the GUI and PC specific bits and pieces. Now, I want to reuse those "generic" classes in an Android version.
I've created a new project in Eclipse. I've used the Build Path / Link Source item to point to the folder of my original project. Now links to the the .java files appear within my new project. I still can't invoke a method from the original project in my new one. I believe this option is only to allow the files to appear in the project and that it doesn't actually do anything functional.
Elsewhere, I learned of the ability to add the source in the Source path tab of the Build Path / Configure Build Path option. No joy with that either.
Another responded suggested adding the original project in the Projects tab of this dialog. This didn't help, either.
I've even tried multiple cantations of "import." Not even sure I should need to. No luck.
How can I resolve my "blah cannot be resolved to a type" warning in my Android project, when trying to call the method from my non-Android project, please?
Is there something missing from the raw Java which is required for an Android build?

You need to create a snaphot/util jar of the common project and include the jar in classpath of the dependent projects. This will fix your IDE problem.
During the deployment, make sure to include this new JAR in lib/classpath location of the deployable projects.

Related

Frege can't find classes in referenced project or external jar

I think I'm making a simple mistake here, but I can't get Frege to find any classes outside of the local Eclipse project.
I have a working non-trivial Java project (that's not mine), that I do not want to modify. I want to have a new clean Frege enabled project that makes use of classes from the original project.
I tried marking the original project as a dependency of my Frege project, and I tried packaging the original project into a JAR, and listing the JAR as an external dependency of the Frege project. In both cases, a Java file in the Frege project can access the classes, but the Frege compiler says "class org.foo.bar.Class is not a known Java class". This seems like a bug, but I am not confident that I have not missed a simple configuration step.
I have not tried setting arguments in the project configuration as I wouldn't know what to set.
I did quickly discover that I can make a new Java file in the Frege project with a blank subclass of whatever class I need and use that in a Frege file. I have successfully compiled and run a simple program like this. The program just makes a new object, gets a field, and prints the correct value, so I believe my Frege is installed and working properly.
More info:
Eclipse Luna 4.4.0
Java 7
No Maven
Official eclipse-ferge plugin installed through Eclipse
It should be enough to have your library listed in the build path and under "Referenced Libraries". Your recent comment indicates that the compiler does indeed find the class in question.
However, when you have an open editor tab it will not take notice of changed dependencies. Also, especially in recent eclipse versions I have observed that resolved error markers are sometimes not cleaned up correctly.
Please close the editor tab that has the false errors shown, and reopen it.

Java: Proper organization of external libraries?

So I took a Coursera course that had me work with external libraries. Two .jar files which most of the weekly projects depended upon.
I'm not entirely sure how eclipse compiles and runs the files, and how it links to these external libraries -- what is the proper way of organizing this? Do I put a copy of each .jar file in each project directory?
Is there another, cleaner way that I should be organizing this?
Thanks --
As a beginner programmer it is OK to put it in each project. But consider that this is ongoing work and at some time in future you want to upgrade to a new version of these external libraries. Then you would have to copy it everywhere.
Instead another option is to store them in one place and add it in classpath in each project. Now you have only one copy of it, which is always better.
Now, if and when you do get a new version then the file names might change, so you will still have to change the classpath of each project.
But I advise you to worry about these and other such problems later. For now, focus on programming related problems rather than configuration.
If you want to maintain your libraries professionally in a formal manor then you're better of using a build tool like Gradle of Maven.
I'd suggest you to use Gradle to maintain the project since it has a whole lot of useful build tools available to you to use. Eclipse has a Gradle plugin available which allows you to use Gradle projects with it. See link below.
To give you a idea of how Gradle is used professionally. Android uses it by default to maintain their projects now. So Android java projects uses the Gradle build tool to maintain its library sources, compilation processes and such.
The difference between a Gradle project and a normal java project is that a Gradle project has a list of pre-defined scripts available to you which fetches the libraries, compiles them and prepares them before exporting the final bundle (jar). So really all Gradle does in before hand is fetch the libraries and prepares the specified tools before compilation so you won't need to mess with them your self. It prepares your project directory and remotely maintains your libraries so if they're available from a repository then it'll make sure to prepare them appropriately in before hand and setup your projects directories.
So really the difference you'd physically notice is that instead of using the default Eclipse export button to create your bundle (jar) you'd instead use a button from the side menu which the Gradle plugin adds and also you'd cleanly list the libraries in a structured order in a file that gets added to your project root.
If you want to get a basic understanding of how it works and really want to start to proffesionally or formally structure your project then try to create a very basic android app in Android Studio. see link below
If this isn't what you want at all and don't want to take it to this advanced level yet then adding the library bundles into some kind of lib folder that's located in your project root is properly best practice.
If you wonder why? Well basically different projects might use different versions of the library which may add or remove support to them. So to keep the versions consistent and make sure to have the right version available to you, you have the direct source near the project it self.
Here's some useful link:
http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipseGradle/article.html
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Using a Library in Source Code in Eclipse?

It's been about 6 years since I had to do any Java programming, and even longer since I had to do any notable amount of Java programming. While I remember the language, I was always weak on all the other things, such as all the tools for building programs and such. In fact, I've forgotten more than I remember - and I was self taught in the first place.
In the past I based my organization of code on what I had seen in some open source projects, so I had directories set up with something like com/mybiz/util and com/mybiz/network and so on. I'd put the source code for the classes in the appropriate directory and make sure it was in the package that matched that path. Then if I had to change the code (like for a bug fix or to add a new routine in an existing class), it was easy for me - change it and recompile the class. As I recall, imports for the classes in the root directory for my project (it was all tied together) to use these classes were no problem with that setup.
Then someone told me about Eclipse, but the biggest thing I remember doing was refactoring in it. Until then, my IDE was a console window and a text editor.
So I still have a lot of classes in that hierarchy - com/mybiz/util (and so on). But now I'm using this code for personal libraries, so it's in com/tango/util and com/tango/network and such. I've having to make changes here and there to code to make it more universal and to remove stuff that was specific to the business for one reason or another.
I want to use these classes as libraries for my projects in Eclipse now. I'd rather not just compile and put them all into a jar, since many of the classes are still being fine tuned and need recompiling. I'd rather just be able to tell Eclipse, "Use this bundle of source code in the "com/tango..." directory tree and then just use something like "import com.tango.util.FileUtils" in my source code.
Even more, I'd like to be able to specify this as a library or some kind of available source code or resource in Eclipse so it's easily added (or added by default) to each project I create.
Can I do this? Or should I be looking into something else or another way to handle it instead? Again, I'd rather just have the source code included, since it's still being changed around and being recompiled.
For the refactoring "magic" you want to use Eclipse needs to know all source files to execute, so you have to have all your source code added into an Eclipse Java project.
However, if you want to have a set of classes that are available for multiple projects, nobody stops you from creating multiple projects, and setting up dependencies between them. The easiest way to achieve this is to add a dependency in the New Java Project wizard (be careful not to press the finish button after setting up the project name but use the Next button where you can add existing Java projects into the build path).
If all your source code is available in either a single, or some interdependent Eclipse Java projects, then Eclipse will take care of compiling all the classes. Usually, Eclipse is intelligent enough to only recompile what needs to be changed, so this process is really swift (at least most of the time).
I hope this answer is helpful enough - if not, feel free to ask for further information.
Edit: Adding information about Java libraries support.
If your "library" project does not change, but you have a jar for it (typically a case of an externally downloaded library), Eclipse allows you to define User Libraries - libraries that can be added to build path of a Java project. To create such a User Library, open Preferences, go to the page Java/*Build Path*/User Libraries, where you can define libraries that consist of one or more jar files.
However, if you are developing your own libraries, and your project does not go into a gigantic size (e.g. several million lines of code), I recommend adding the library project as source into the Eclipse workspace, as in my experience that is easier to maintain in the long run.
First, I would suggest using IntelliJ (in my opinion it's much better than eclipse) but it is very possible to do this and simple as well. So to save time lets pretend all the classes you need in the future library are Network.class, FileUtils.class, and Helper.class. First make a new folder on your desktop called My Libraries. Right click on it and hit Send To, then Compressed Zip Folder.:
Once that's done drag your class files into the folder.
Open up Eclipse and choose a workspace. Once you've done that, you should show up with the default Eclipse screen. Now hit the File tab and hover over New, then go to Java Project.
You will show up with another screen. Enter the name for your project and click Next. Hit the Libraries tab and then click Add External Jars.
Now navigate to your Compressed Zip and click Open.
You now have your library added.
Here is a little ASCII Chart so you can remember:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Folder -> Class Files -> Compressed Zip -> Eclipse -> New Project -> Next -> Libraries -> Add External Jars -> Compressed Zip (Library)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eclipse Not Finding Classes added to the build Path (Java Dynamic Web Project)

I am taking over a web project from my school. I am trying to deploy the project in eclipse. The project uses a group of libraries (Namely javax.mail.* , com.sun.mail.*, org.joda.* and org.apache.*). The project can not compile because it is unable to locate these. I have them in the src folder and then added the three top level folders/packages to the build path. The import statements work. But getting the joda.time.CLASSXYZ does not work (Then I instantiate the class CLASSXYZ). (The error is "The type org.joda.time.base.BaseDateTime cannot be resolved. It is indirectly referenced from required .class files" the import was joda.time.* so the class should have been imported)
I've looked at the other threads and most of them just explain how to add folders to the build path. I have Apache tomcat set up with eclipse. It works with other projects that I have deployed.
This problem has gotten pretty frustrating as its preventing me from starting the project. Any help you be much appreciated.
Cheers
Unless you use maven you need to download additional libraries:
javax.mail: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javamail/index.html (also included in Java EE)
org.apache http://commons.apache.org/
org.joda http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/
I suggest to place them in a folder 'lib' and add the jar-files to your build class path. (context menu on your project).
The other threads you mentioned are pointing you in the right direction, and provide a good practice to get in to (especially once you start having more than one project running in your eclipse ide).
So right click project - Build Path - Configure Build Path... , then in the Libraries tab, click Add External JARs and add in the jar for org.joda from the link in the other answer here. This way you can have all your external jar libraries in one spot and reuse them across multiple projects. There's also about a dozen different ways to do the same thing in eclipse, but this is the most direct I think. I'm on version Helios (your's might be slightly different). I try not to use source files of external code libraries unless I want to play around, debugging their code - not a bad thing to do - but I never have the time to spare for that.
Also I'd double check that the other libraries you mentioned aren't being automatically linked in or included as part of the JRE system library. Especially if you are setup in a Dynamic Web Project, it would surprise me if org.apache wasn't already there... but I could easily be wrong there, have been many times before & eclipse was usually involved ;-)

Symbol error in java application using netbeans 6.8 when adding a shared project to library

I have a project which has shared functionality between three other projects and have linked these to existing projects as I normally would using the add project functionality of the libraries folder.
This all used to work however when I started up Netbeans yesterday it just wasn't working as in the other projects won't compile even though the projects are linked. It can recognise the packages - just the actual classes themselves were not recognised... and to add to the weirdness some of the classes are getting picked up fine.
I have checked the dist folder of the shared project and the Shared.jar file exists. Also I have checked the Jar and the other classes that are not being recognises are there also.
Any suggestions?
alt text http://inverse.seednet.eu/snaps/duvc6r.png
Solution
I had to reinstall netbeans to get this solution resolved
This is most likely a bug in 6.8, as I have ran into the same problem and I only solved it by recreating the project, was a fairly fast process, only had to re-import the sources and then add the JARs on which it depends.
To confirm this case you only have to see the imports that NetBeans did not find, and then go to the included JARs and see if the class really is there, if it is, then it should be able to find it.
Do you have AbstractCrawler.class compiled to its output location as well?

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