What is the proper style for listing imports in Java?

Question

Is it better to list each individual piece of a package you\'re going to need (see #1) or is it better to just import everything from a package (see #2)?

1

Answer 1

Use import individually.

It is way lot better for production code to list each and every one of the classes being imported.

While the IDE's do a great job helping you know which classes are being used, it is more readable to know that you're referring to :

java.util.List;

and not

java.awt.List; 

and so on.

Additionally it is recommended that you group them by package starting by the core libraries passing by 3rd party and ending with own project libraries:

 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Date;

 import javax.swing.JFrame;
 import javax.swing.JPanel;

 import javax.swing.event.TableModelListener;

 import org.apache.commons.httpclient.cookie.CookiePolicy;
 import org.apache.commons.httpclient.cookie.CookieSpec;

 import your.own.packagename.here.SomeClass;
 import your.own.packagename.here.OtherClass;

Using wildcard is acceptable for small self project/classes. It is faster, but it is not expected to be maintainable. If any other developer is involved, use the first.