Thread: Eclipse .java file without project and package creation

I am beginner in Java and new to Eclipse. I initially used Edit Plus and I feel it very convenient to create .java file and compile it in the command prompt. I recently started using Eclipse but not able to create .java files without project and packages. As I am a beginner , I want to try lot of basic programs to understand the concepts for which packages and project not required.

1 ) Can .java files be created and compiled in the Eclipse without project and package creation as I do it in Edit plus ?

2 ) Also, when I tried creating a new project and want to put all the files that into that project. I right clicked the project and click import and selected the files. Now I have many .java files under my project same. I removed Exlcude buildpath for each .java file ( so that it recognizes different mains in each .java files - Not sure this is correct way of doing it or not ) and tried compiling it. But it shows error in the main function line. Though all are simple programs using Println, but I am not able to rectify the errors.

I do not want to go back to Edit Plus as Eclipse is widely used and I want to get comfortable with Eclipse. Please do help.

Thanks & regards
Geek Bits

Thanks for the reply.

I am asking whether any way to get around with options.

If not, then I have already lot of .java files. I need to run this in Eclipse IDE. So I created a project and then package and imported the .java files . How to compile these files ? When I click ctrl + F11 and it says unresolved compilation and pointing to main function

Edit == > Again did the above from first. can compile and run from Eclipse ; Also from the command prompt.

In order to run in Eclipse, we must create project and packages even for simple hello world program.

Thanks

Originally Posted by geekbits

Thanks for the reply.

I am asking whether any way to get around with options.

If not, then I have already lot of .java files. I need to run this in Eclipse IDE. So I created a project and then package and imported the .java files . How to compile these files ? When I click ctrl + F11 and it says unresolved compilation and pointing to main function

Edit == > Again did the above from first. can compile and run from Eclipse ; Also from the command prompt.

In order to run in Eclipse, we must create project and packages even for simple hello world program.

Thanks

That's one of the trade-offs with using Eclipse. It is able to provide those advanced tools for you because it has projects to manage the build process. Because the build process can be quite complicated the settings are quite extensive, and thus can be extremely over-kill for a simple program.

Packages aren't really necessary but highly recommended. Eclipse will complain and moan about them being missing (or, Eclipse will complain that you're using the default package), but at the end of the day you can tell Eclipse to work without packages anyways.

There are a few solutions:

1. Don't use Eclipse and stick with your advanced text-editor. I do this from time to time.

2. Deal with the fact that you have to create an Eclipse project every time.

3. Create a test project which can house your small test projects. You can add as many Java files as you want to a single project (even multiple classes with main entry point methods), and since Eclipse will automatically compile all your classes and is fairly smart at figuring out which class entry point to start in (just open up the source file and make sure it's active in the editor), you can run each of these small projects inside a single Eclipse project without too much hassle. Sometimes I even take the laziness one step further and "cannibalize" a single class file, adding methods which perform some small test and modifying the main method to call the method I really want to start in. Furthermore, as long as the classes your entry point is in or relies on doesn't have any compile errors, you don't have to worry about other classes in the same project which won't compile or have bugs.