Run etags over java source files packaged inside JARs

Run etags over java source files packaged inside JARs

[matthew.weaver]

In at least one large project, most of the 3rd-party libraries are distributed with their (java) source code bundled into jar files. It would be convenient if etags could index all that code in place, without having to store it uncompressed in the filesystem. 

Does etags, or any auxiliary utility, support this? Thanks.

Re: Run etags over java source files packaged inside JARs

[Filipp Gunbin]

On 12/03/2015 16:50 -0700, matthew.weaver@gmail.com wrote:

> In at least one large project, most of the 3rd-party libraries are
> distributed with their (java) source code bundled into jar files. It
> would be convenient if etags could index all that code in place,
> without having to store it uncompressed in the filesystem.
>
> Does etags, or any auxiliary utility, support this? Thanks.

Hi Matthew,

Seems that out-of-the-box, no.

It's rather uncommon to put sources in the same jars as byte-code: at
least it will unnecessarily increase the size of assemblies (like
war-s).

With Maven, sources are usually distributed in arhives besides jars, as
a separate type of the artifact.  IDEs usually process and use them.  I
think that javaimp package [1] could be extended to support browsing the
sources.  It obtains the classpath of the module via `mvn
dependency:build-classpath' command, then it could try the amended jar
filepath to find the sources.

However, I find it more convenient to just download the library sources
from git/whatever, build them to obtain javadocs and navigate both the
sources and docs manually.

But I'd like to hear what others think about that.

As for projects not using a dependency-management system, it'd be rather
boring to set the classpath manually, but it could be supported also
(but what is the general way of finding sources in this case? - a
separate path?)

Filipp

[1] http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/javaimp.html