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Asked: 2026-05-29T10:24:36+00:00

I have a server application and two Swing-based client applications. We’re developing them in

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I have a server application and two Swing-based client applications. We’re developing them in eclipse and there’s a separate project for each.

Many classes are shared. For example, the my.server package has some classes for both the server and the clients while others are for the server only. Although I prefer to put them in the same package because they are closely related and some of them rely on package visibility, I don’t want to distribute classes that an application does not need as not only would it bloat the file size, but also it would be a security risk.

At the moment, each of the server and the clients has the same jars, which is a mess. Ideally, I’d like to automatically create jars based on dependency as following.

Server:

  • server.jar: classes used by Server only
  • server-client1-common.jar: classes shared by Server and Client 1
  • server-client2-common.jar: classes shared by Server and Client 2

Client 1:

  • client1.jar: classes used by Client 1 only
  • server-client1-common.jar: classes shared by Server and Client 1
  • client-common.jar: classes shared by Client 1 and Client 2, but not Server

Client 2:

  • client2.jar: classes used by Client 2 only
  • server-client2-common.jar: classes shared by Server and Client 2
  • client-common.jar: classes shared by Client 1 and Client 2, but not Server

I realize that you can do this manually using ant, but it would be a maintenance disaster. Is there a tool that takes care of such dependency automatically?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    One of the best practices regarding building applications is to have one jar per project.

    Maven, for example, uses this as default. You can trick it to do otherwise, but it is better to join them instead of “fight” them.

    http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-using-one-source-directory.html

    http://www.sonatype.com/people/2010/01/how-to-create-two-jars-from-one-project-and-why-you-shouldnt/

    So, in your case you should create 6 projects:
    Server, Client1, Client2, ServerClient1Common, ServerClient2Common, ClientCommon

    In order to select the classes needed, I don’t think there is a tool, and probably you should know better what is the common functionality.
    Create the Common projects, and add them to the build path – dependencies. Then start moving your classes into the Common project, leaving them in the same package.

    For example, create ServerClient1Common project.
    For Client1, go to Configure Build Path -> Projects. Add ServerClient1Common. Remove all references to Server Project.
    For Server, go to Configure Build Path -> Projects. Add ServerClient1Common. Remove all references to Client1 Project.

    You should now have a lot of missing classes/imports. Try to solve them one by one.

    At the end, you should be able compile the 3 projects and to obtain the jars you mentioned.

    PS: Other strategies (like one uber-project with different build targets, or 3 projects with entwined ant/maven builders) are messier. There is maybe one exception – another way of splitting the classes, but I do not know if it applies to you: client1.jar, client1-interface.jar, client2.jar, client2-interface.jar, server.jar, server-interface.jar. This way you could use 3 projects with each having two target jars. To run client2.jar you will need server-interface.jar

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