Java project hierarchy in eclipse

Question

Is there a difference between a package and a folder in eclipse? for example, if I have this hierarchy requirement:

java –classpath  C:\ChatCompany\BackendChatServer\ 
  -Djava.security.policy=c:\HW2\permissions.policy 
   hw2.chat.backend.main.ChatBackendServer 

when the package's name is:

hw2.chat.backend.main

, and "ChatCompany\BackendChatServer\" is the folder name.

Then how can I make this separation between a package and a folder in eclipse, so that I can write:

package hw2.chat.backend.main;

, and not "package ChatCompany.BackendChatServer.hw2.chat.backend.main"?

thanks

Answer 1

You need to:

• define your root project outside of the workspace. The root of the project (where the .eclipse and .classpath are actually created) will be at C:\ChatCompany for instance.
• make BackendChatServer the source folder, under which all sub-directories like hw2 will be created as part of the package path of a Java class.
• make the output of the compilation in the same directory than the sources.

That way:

• you can write "package hw2.chat.backend.main"
• you can have a classpath set to "C:\ChatCompany\BackendChatServer\"

Answer 2

I found that when I create a project in eclipse I can add a source folder apart from the default "src", so I added this folder name: ChatCompany\BackendChatServer, and then this line gets added to the .classpath file at the root of the project:

<classpathentry kind="src" path="ChatCompany/BackendChatServer"/>. 

I suppose you can also add the folders manually outside eclipse, but then you have to change the .classpath yourself.