Question

When creating a new Android application, Eclipse complains Package name must have at least two identifiers and Netbeans complains Package name must have at least two parts (Android Bug).

I understand how to work around this problem. My question is: where is this limitation coming from? I didn’t find a mention of it in the Android documentation or the issue tracker.

Answer 1

My question is: where is this limitation coming from?

Particularly since the package must be unique on the device and unique on the Android Market, the strong recommendation is for you to use standard Java reverse-domain-name conventions for your package. Quoting the documentation:

To avoid conflicts with other developers, you should use Internet domain ownership as the basis for your package names (in reverse). For example, applications published by Google start with com.google. You should also never use the com.example namespace when publishing your applications.

A domain name must have at least two segments; hence, the restriction requiring two segments.