Building custom Java library

Question

I've noticed that a lot of Javascript/jQuery libraries allow developers to customize the .js file, thus including only the bare minimum functionality to save bandwidth/page load times.

Now when I'm distributing my Java library to clients, is there a way to do the same? I don't like forcing clients to have to include a large library in their application if they're only going to be using a few classes.

Ideally everything would be packaged into a nice JAR file.

EDIT: Something similar to this: http://flowplayer.org/tools/download/index.html

Jar files are just Zip files.... with some meta data. It is, thus, possible to build/customize any Jar from any Java or Php, any language with a Zip library tool — Yanick Rochon
– Yanick Rochon, Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 15:31

Ted Hopp · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-13 15:31:13Z

3

Most obfuscators (including the popular ProGuard) can (and by default will) eliminate unused methods and classes from the jar. They do a nice job of checking that apparently unused classes are not used indirectly by the main program.

answered Jul 13, 2011 at 15:31

Ted Hopp

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2 Comments

tskuzzy Over a year ago

I'm the library developer. I cannot know a priori what the users of my library will use or not use. And I don't think it's safe to assume that all my users will know of ProGuard and will use it to deploy their applications.

Ted Hopp Over a year ago

I looked at the page you linked to in your edit. Based on that, it seems like you could define the subset versions yourself and generate the appropriate .jar files yourself using ProGuard (turning off all obfuscation options, so it would just filter out unused portions). Then you could tell your users that if none of the predefined subsets met their needs, they should use the full library and run a compression/obfuscation tool themselves.

Jason Nichols · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-13 15:31:19Z

1

This is one of the things ProGuard does. From the website:

ProGuard is a free Java class file shrinker, optimizer, obfuscator, and preverifier. It detects and removes unused classes, fields, methods, and attributes.

answered Jul 13, 2011 at 15:31

Jason Nichols

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2 Comments

tskuzzy Over a year ago

See my comment on Ted Hopp's answer.

Jason Nichols Over a year ago

I had assumed you meant other third party libraries that yours depended on, such as if you used only a single class from the Apache Commons IO library.

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