What is a .java~ file?

[timmay3141]

I know Java somewhat and just started a job using it. I'm supposed to modify a project that already exists. The project is so screwed up I don't know where to begin: there are blatant package rule violations and tons of errors. After screwing around with it for a couple hours, I still can't get it to work, although it apparently did for the people who made it. I assume that most of these are in files that are not used since there are so many errors, but I don't know that for sure. Anyway, half the files in the project have the normal .java extension, and the other half have a .java~ extention. Eclipse won't recognize the .java~ as legitimate source code. Google thinks it is smarter than me and removes the tilde from the search so I can't look for an answer to this question online. Does anyone know why it would have a tilde at the end of the normal file extension? Does this have some special significance?

 

[stefanwagner]

Perhaps they're backup-files, automatically done by the ide?
Is there an IDE? Which?
Do their basenames allways match other files, with normal extension?
And are the files similar? (use diff to compare files).

Eclipse is a nice tool for refactoring: renamings through the whole project are done context-sensitive, unused variables etc. marked, and much more...

seeking a job as java-programmer in Berlin:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[timmay3141]

I found out - apparently it was a backup file created by an old IDE. The applet I was supposed to use has since been renamed, so when I used the backup file with updated code there were obviously problems. Thanks anyway.

 

[LAMski]

The Netbeans IDE makes *.*~ copies of files that you edit on it. It can be safely ignored or deleted.