Java: Possible to consolidate empty subdirectories for packages that only contain other packages?

Question

Good afternoon, all.

I'm not too hopeful for a "yes" here, but if anyone can figure it out, the folks at SO can.

I have a Java project that has the following package structure:

src
|-net
| |-binarymuse
|   |-gwt
|     |-client
|     | |-ui
|     |   |-project
|     |     |-Project.java
|     |-Project.gwt.xml
|-overview.html

I would like to consolidate the empty subdirectories in the src/ folder so that instead of /src/net/binarymuse/gwt/client/ui/project/ I'd have /src/net.binarymuse.gwt/client.ui.project/. Is this possible?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can't collapse the directories on disk, no, but some IDEs (e.g. Eclipse) will do it automatically when they show the class hierarchy

Answer 2

It should be possible to write a classloader that works like this, perhaps even by subclassing URLClassLoader.