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- Written by Nam Ha Minh
- Last Updated on 07 August 2019   |   Print Email
In programming, copyright license is usually put at the beginning of every source file. This article shows you how to manage copyright license with ease in Eclipse. You will be able to generate (and update or rewrite whenever you want) a nice copyright license like the following screenshot:
There are two different ways to add/update copyright license to Java source files. We look at the simplest way first.
1. Modifying Java Code Templates
In this way, we use a built-in feature of Eclipse. Click
Window > Preferences to launch the
Preferences dialog. Then expand the tree on the left to the branch
Java > Code Style > Code Templates:
Then expand the branch
Code > New Javafiles under the section ‘
Configure generated code and comments’. We are going to modify code template of every new Java file created afterward, so click
Edit button. In the
Edit Template dialog, insert some sentences for your copyright license into the
Pattern text area:
NOTE: You can insert some predefined variables by using the button
Insert Variable.
Click
OK when you are done editing. Then we get back to the
Preferences dialog with the newly updated pattern:
From now on, Eclipse will insert the above copyright license into every new Java file you created afterward.But what if you already have dozens of files in your project and you want to update the copyright statements for all these files? Search and replace the entire project maybe a good choice, but it’s not the best. Let’s move on the second way to explore the best solution.
2. Using Eclipse’s Releng Tools
Eclipse has a very nice tool called
Releng which is intended to solve all headaches regarding copyright license update in Java projects.
Releng has a unique function called “
Fix Copyrights” which is very useful. Because Eclipse doesn’t include this tool by default, so we have to install it.Go to
Help > Install New Software… to open the
Install dialog:
Select “
The Eclipse Project Updates -
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/update/4.4” from the Work with dropdown list. The number is different depending on your Eclipse version, here I use Luna, hence the number 4.4.Eclipse then lists all updates in the below table. Scroll down to the bottom of the list, check
Releng Tools and click
Next.The next screen is for review purpose:
Click
Next to proceed to the
Review Licenses screen:
Choose “
I accept the terms of the license agreement” then click Finish. Wait a while for Eclipse to install the
RelengTools:
After the installation completed, you have to re-start Eclipse when asked:
Now go to
Window > Preferences, and select
Copyright Tool:
You can see there is a default copyright template, edit the template as you want and then click
OK to save changes. Here what we typed:
NOTE: You should check the option “
Replace all existing copyright comments with this copyright template” so Eclipse will re-write copyright statements in all files.Now we can use the
Fix Copyrights context menu to apply copyright template to the whole project, a package or a single source file:
Notice Eclipse reports status of update in the
Console view as shown in the following screenshot:
NOTE: Our test shows that the
Releng Tools only works with projects shared using Git repository. If your project doesn’t have source control like Git, it doesn’t work.
Conclusion:So far we have explored the two ways of generate and updating copyright license for source files in Eclipse. The modification of code templates is quick and easy but limited. And the
Releng Tools is the ultimate solution which is more powerful and flexible. But one limitation of
Releng is that it works with Git-based projects only. Hope Eclipse will make it to works with all projects soon.
References:
Other Eclipse Tutorials:
About the Author:
Nam Ha Minh is certified Java programmer (SCJP and SCWCD). He started programming with Java in the time of Java 1.4 and has been falling in love with Java since then. Make friend with him on
Facebook and watch
his Java videos you YouTube.