Eclipse and Jigsaw modules

See also: bug 479483 - [1.9] Define what is Module in Eclipse

Modules

• A module (binary/source) in Eclipse is represented by an IPackageFragmentRoot. (Note: It will be represented by others too, for e.g. ClasspathEntry, ClasspathDirectory etc. depending on the context)
• API: IPackageFragmentRoot#isModule. (Note: Clearly this API needs rethinking. Perhaps it should denote whether or not it is a named module)
• Binary modules (as JARs): Above API returns true for ModulePackageFragmentRoot
• Source modules (as source folders):

- What is the criterion for a source folder to be a module (for the API to return true)? - Presence of module-info.java file in it?

- If some source folder in a project does not contain a module-info.java file, is it considered as an "unnamed module"?

- In that case, will the API return true for all source folders? Then, how do we differentiate between named and unnamed modules via API, or we don't need to?

- Can we have multiple source folders in a project, each having its own module-info.java file? Hence, having multiple modules in a project.

module-info.java file

• How to create a module-info.java file in a source folder?

1) File > New > File > Select the source folder and create file.

2) A new option on "New Source Folder" dialog to create it along with the source folder? (Similar to package-info.java on "New Java Package" dialog.)

• Place the module-info.java file in the default package of that source folder.

• The file will have the normal "J" icon of a .java file.

Functionality required in module-info.java editor

• Formatter
• Content assist for keywords, modules, types etc.
• Syntax coloring for keywords, modules, types etc.
• Mark occurrences
• Javadoc hover on type names
• Navigation (Ctrl+click) to types
• ...

Handling modulepath

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Representing layers

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