why is defult package use discouraged in eclipse

[Nikos Stavros]

Just to easy my curiosity I was wondering if anyone knew why is defult package use discouraged in eclipse.

[Tim Holloway]

Actually, the default package is discouraged everywhere.

Seriously, since the fully-qualified name of a class includes the package name, and the default package (by definition) has no package name, there's too much chance for confusion.

Take an extreme case. Create a class named "String" and place it in the default package. Now define another class in the default package and construct String objects. that is "String xyzzy = new String();"

Can you keep the difference between default "String" and implicit "java.lang.String" straight? Would you like to try on any non-trivial project? Eclipse doesn't.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Nikos,
Also, if you have two "default packages" (two unnamed packages in different folders), it's confusing. You can't legally import one from the other as you can only import a package name or fully qualified class. In Java 1.4, Sun explicitly prevented the compiler from accepting this.

[Nikos Stavros]

Thanks Tim and Jeanne for your imformative help. keep up the good work

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Jeanne Boyarsky:
Nikos,
Also, if you have two "default packages" (two unnamed packages in different folders), it's confusing.

In fact it would be the same package, with its content spread over several folders.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:


In fact it would be the same package, with its content spread over several folders.

Right. Thanks for wording this in a clearer fashion.