Android package names

Question

In an Android application, I notice that the package name of a class does not have to match the name that was generated when I created the new project. In other areas, Java is insistent that everything matches. I would like to understand why this is not the case for package names, and what the implications are.

Example: I create a new project named TextToSpeech, using my own reverse domain name. This gives a package name of com.lexogram.texttospeech; the path to the MainActivity.java class file is TextToSpeech/app/src/man/java/com.lexogram.texttospeech/.

I now go to a TextToSpeech tutorial and copy-and-paste the code into my project. This code uses com.example.texttospeech as the package name, both in the MainActivity class and in the AndroidManifest.xml. I run the project, and everything works fine.

Does this mean that each activity can use a different package name, so long as the name is used consistently across all files in the activity?

Simas · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-25 13:33:31Z

1

What it means is that your project can have multiple packages inside of it.

Java documentation explains them nicely:

To make types easier to find and use, to avoid naming conflicts, and to control access, programmers bundle groups of related types into packages.

answered Oct 25, 2014 at 13:33

Simas

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2 Comments

James Newton Over a year ago

Suppose I have a set of files that deal (say) with Text To Speech, and another set of files that deal with Pattern Recognition. These sets will include classes, layouts and resources. If I understand correctly, I should create a separate package for each of them, and save the classes in separate sub-directories of the java/ folder. For example: java/com/example/texttospeech/TTS.java, java/com/example/patternrecognition/PatternRecognition.java, and so on. Is that what your answer implies?

Simas Over a year ago

@JamesNewton big projects are split to packages, so it's easier to manage hundreds of files and browse to find something you need. Personally I split my application functionality into sub packages, just like you mentioned in your example of text recognition.

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