Back in 1996 when I was writing the first edition of Java in a Nutshell, the book designers on the production team at O'Reilly need to know the longest class name so they could make sure it would fit in the title of reference entries. At the time it was StringIndexOutOfBoundsException at 31 characters. Tonight, I wondered if that record still stood...
So I used find, echo wc, grep, sed, and sort (isn't Unix great?) to process the filenames in the javadoc directory of J2SE 1.4.2 and find out what the longest class name is. I did not count the length of the package name, nor did I include inner classes in my count research. StringIndexOutOfBoundsException is still the longest class in java.lang, but it is matched in length by java.util.ConcurrentModificationException, and exceeded by 16 classes in less commonly used packages.
The longest of all, standing alone at 36 finger-fatiguing characters is javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactoryConfigurationError. The complete list of class names >= 30 characters is at the end of this post.
And what about short class names?
The longest class names are:
36 javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactoryConfigurationError 35 javax.naming.AuthenticationNotSupportedException 35 javax.naming.directory.InvalidAttributeIdentifierException 34 java.awt.ContainerOrderFocusTraversalPolicy 34 java.beans.beancontext.BeanContextServiceProviderBeanInfo 34 java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException 34 org.omg.PortableInterceptor.ClientRequestInterceptorOperations 34 org.omg.PortableInterceptor.ServerRequestInterceptorOperations 34 org.omg.PortableServer.ImplicitActivationPolicyOperations 33 java.beans.beancontext.BeanContextServiceRevokedListener 33 java.util.prefs.InvalidPreferencesFormatException 33 javax.swing.InternalFrameFocusTraversalPolicy 33 javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException 33 org.omg.PortableServer.RequestProcessingPolicyOperations 32 java.beans.beancontext.BeanContextServiceAvailableEvent 32 org.omg.PortableServer.ServantRetentionPolicyOperations 31 java.awt.geom.NoninvertibleTransformException 31 java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException 31 java.nio.channels.UnsupportedAddressTypeException 31 java.security.cert.CertificateNotYetValidException 31 java.util.ConcurrentModificationException 31 javax.naming.ldap.UnsolicitedNotificationListener 31 javax.security.cert.CertificateNotYetValidException 31 javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException 30 java.awt.IllegalComponentStateException 30 java.awt.image.renderable.ContextualRenderedImageFactory 30 java.beans.beancontext.BeanContextChildComponentProxy 30 java.beans.beancontext.BeanContextServiceRevokedEvent 30 java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException 30 java.security.AlgorithmParameterGeneratorSpi 30 java.security.spec.RSAMultiPrimePrivateCrtKeySpec 30 javax.naming.InsufficientResourcesException 30 javax.naming.OperationNotSupportedException 30 javax.naming.directory.AttributeModificationException 30 javax.naming.directory.InvalidAttributeValueException 30 javax.naming.directory.InvalidSearchControlsException 30 javax.transaction.TransactionRolledbackException 30 org.omg.IOP.MultipleComponentProfileHelper 30 org.omg.IOP.MultipleComponentProfileHolder
And the shortest names are
3 java.net.URI 3 java.net.URL 3 java.rmi.dgc.DGC 3 java.rmi.server.UID 3 java.security.Key 3 java.security.acl.Acl 3 java.security.cert.CRL 3 java.sql.Ref 3 java.util.Map 3 java.util.Set 3 javax.crypto.Mac 3 javax.print.Doc 3 javax.rmi.CORBA.Tie 3 javax.swing.Box 3 javax.swing.text.html.CSS 3 javax.swing.text.html.parser.DTD 3 javax.transaction.xa.Xid 3 org.ietf.jgss.Oid 3 org.omg.CORBA.Any 3 org.omg.CORBA.ORB 3 org.omg.CORBA_2_3.ORB 3 org.omg.IOP.IOR 3 org.omg.PortableServer.POA
