Story within the javadoc of "TransformerFactoryImpl" from rt.jar

[Manu Somasekhar]

I was going through the source of TransformerFactoryImpl.java from rt.jar . I found java doc of the variable as "DEFAULT_TRANSLET_NAME" as "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect". Jumping into the class browser within eclipse I found more kind of a story. Check this link. Anybody know what is this mystery all about ?

[Ulf Dittmer]

If you search for "Gregor Samsa" you'll find that he is the protagonist of a story called "The Metamorphosis" written by Franz Kafka. Transformation is another word for metamorphosis, so it seems to fit with the purpose of the class. Interesting discovery :-)

[Campbell Ritchie]

They obviously let people write Javadoc comments on 1st April at Apache

[Mike Simmons]

It's not just the JavaDoc - the value of DEFAULT_TRANSLET_NAME is "GregorSamsa". This means that by default, the transformer factory generates a translet class named GregorSamsa.java. You may see references to this in stack traces.

[Rob Spoor]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:a story called "The Metamorphosis" written by Franz Kafka.

Die Verwandlung, for purists (like me). Quite a good book, I've read it in high school.

[Mike Simmons]

I'm guessing Ulf knows that.

[Manu Somasekhar]

So it was an Easter egg in jdk .