Merging two classes into one

Ok, I know this might a little bit crazy, but does anyone know if there is any library out there that could help me with merging two classes into one?
In other words, say I have a class named Student which contains certain fields and methods, and I also have another class with the same name which contains some other fields and methods. Now I want to merge the two files into one. Is there any (easy ) way to do so?

Thanks!

I have a stupid question- why don't you just use the old fashioned copy-paste method?

No, I can't. Because I want the merging to be done automatically. Also, if the class file is long, it's gonna take quite a lot of time for a HUMAN BEING to read through, and then decide what to keep, and what not to keep.

Well, maybe I should include some example...

So suppose I have a class

Code:

---

public class Student
{
String description;

public Student (String de )
{
description = de;
}

public String getDescription ()
{
return description;
}

public void setDescription (String de )
{
description = de;
}

}

---

And another class with the same name

Code:

---

public class Student
{
Grade theGrade;

public Student (Grade grade )
{
theGrade = grade;
}


public getGrade ()
{
return Grade;
}

}

---

So now the objective is to merge these two files so I can have ONE SINGLE source ffile of the class Student, which, of course, has to contain both the description and Grade.

Quote:

---

Because I want the merging to be done automatically.

---

Are you trying to put programmers out of work? Have the computer do a programming tasks will reduce the number of programmers needed.

If the classes consist only of variables and getter and setter methods, then it might be possible.

Are you saying this is impossible? :(sweat):

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by oontvoo

No, I can't. Because I want the merging to be done automatically. Also, if the class file is long, it's gonna take quite a lot of time for a HUMAN BEING to read through, and then decide what to keep, and what not to keep.

---

What you're talking about might be possible (have you googled "merge java files"?), but I'm not sure it's a good approach. Anything more complicated than simple getters and setters is going to be hit-or-miss with the machine (for an extremely simple example, what should it do with your constructor? Split it into two? Add a parameter? Which parameter comes first? Is that true in every case?), and anything less complicated really doesn't need to be automated (seriously, how much faster are you going to get than control-C, click, control-V?).

The simple truth is, you probably could have finished the job by now.

It's not like I'm lazy to do the copy- and-paste thingy.
In fact, I'm doing a code-generating project, which would be more robust if it has this kind of feature! ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by oontvoo

It's not like I'm lazy to do the copy- and-paste thingy.
In fact, I'm doing a code-generating project, which would be more robust if it has this kind of feature! ...

---

Okay, but like I said, any merge that isn't simple enough to be pointless isn't going to be exactly straightforward. What if you have two methods that have the same signature but a different body? And that's just another really simple example, not even trying to get into the inevitable gotchas.

What you're talking about probably exists (did you google it yet?), as I know things like SVN do merges- whether or not that's the kind of thing you're looking for is up to you.

Code generators are the devil's work.

I've done quite a lot of googlings. And quite honestly, I didn't find anything of much use.
Anyways, I'll keep looking.
Thanks all for the replies.

The reason you haven't found anything of much use is probably due to the problems I listed with merging files in the first place- a lot of it depends on semantics as opposed to simple syntax, and that's not exactly trivial. There might be an eclipse plugin or something.

For ordinary methods and member variables the merging of the two classes is easy: simply rename those methods/variables whenever necessary; for methods that implement identical interfaces (implemented by both classes) and constructors the problem is a lot nastier ... This entire exercise sounds like anti-refactoring to me.

kind regards,

Jos