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Coding Conventions

Oracle has established coding standards that are generally considered reasonable, as evidenced by their widespread adoption by other Java-based development efforts (e.g., the Apache Jakarta project). One of the goals is to make the Eclipse Platform blend in with the Java platform. This goal is furthered by our following suit.

Oracle's Code Conventions for the Java Programming Language covers filenames, file organization, indentation, comments, declarations, statements, white space, naming conventions, and programming practices. All code written for the Eclipse Platform should follow these conventions except as noted below. We deviate only in places where our needs differ from Oracle's; when we do deviate, we explain why. (The section numbers shown below are Oracle's.)

  • Section 3.1.1 Beginning Comments
The Eclipse project has specific guidelines for copyright notices to appear at the beginning of source files. See the Eclipse Project Charter for details.
  • Section 4 Indentation
We indent with tabs (4 spaces wide), since mixed indents are a mess.
  • Section 9 Naming Conventions
The Eclipse project has more specific naming conventions. See Eclipse Project Naming Conventions for details.


For Javadoc conventions, see Oracle's How to Write Doc Comments for the Javadoc Tool and Eclipse/API_Central.

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