Java 9 Modules

Modules are a layer of abstraction above packages that allows you to group related packages together.

Since the entire JDK has been split into modules, and because you have to explicitly state which modules your own modules need, your own distributable will only contain the code it needs to by using modules.

In the old pre-JDK9 days, your distributable would contain the entire Java Platform, which meant a lot of code you probably weren’t using (e.g. classes to deal with XML or Swing UIs)

A good guide can be found at https://www.oracle.com/corporate/features/understanding-java-9-modules.html

View All Modules

You can list all available modules in the JDK:

java --list-modules

Output

java.activation@10
java.base@10
java.compiler@10
java.corba@10
java.datatransfer@10
java.desktop@10
java.instrument@10
java.jnlp@10
java.logging@10
# ...
# ... and loads more

Directory Structure and module-info

Each module must be in its own root directory and contain a module-info.java file that is the module declaration.

module xyz.byexample.java9.examplemodule {
    // Declare the packages we are exporting.
    exports xyz.byexample.java.examplemodule;

    // Delcare the modules that this module depends on
    requires java.base;
}

The root directory is by convention the name of the module (including the full stops/periods), and you then have your traditional java package directory structure (i.e. a directory for xyz then a sub directory for byexample under that and so on) where you put your classes.

xyz.byexample.java9.examplemodule/
├ xyz/
│  └ byexample/
│       └ java9/
│           └ examplemodule/
│               └ ExampleClass.java
└ module-info.java