[ACCEPTED]-Why classes compile to .class but interface does not to .interface-interface

Accepted answer

Score: 16

Because the point is to indicate that the 2 file is Java byte code (and .class was the extension chosen 1 for that), not the specific language construction.

Score: 7

Java treats interfaces almost like classes, eg 14 they share the same namespace (you can't 13 have an interface that has the same name 12 as a class) and a compiled interface is 11 almost identical to a compiled abstract 10 class.

So it would not make any sense to 9 store them in a different format or with 8 a different file extension. On the contrary, this 7 would make many things harder. For example, when 6 you load a class or interface by name (Class.forName("my.class.name")) Java 5 does not know whether it is a class or an 4 interface. If there would be two different 3 extensions, Java would have try to find 2 a file "my/class/name.class" and then "my/class/name.interface", instead 1 of only trying the first one.

Score: 6

The physical representation of the byte-code on 3 the file system doesn't matter.

It's the 2 logical realization (whether class or interface) that 1 matters.

Score: 4

That's the way the language designers decided.

It 5 makes sense in several ways:

.class files are a byproduct that you don't normally see or manipulate by hand.
The less different extensions a program uses, the easier it is to maintain.
In many cases, there's no distinction in the code between a class and an interface, so it's logical that the binary files look alike.

Frankly, I can't 4 think of a good reason to have different 3 extensions for compiled classes and interfaces. Why 2 would it be important to distinguish between 1 them?

Score: 3

In java, you have source files, called .java 4 and binaries called .class. Its just a choice 3 of naming.

Also for java classes and interface's 2 don't differ that much (a class just contains 1 a lot of extra information like method bodies).

Score: 1

It is just a choice they made. I wouldn't 3 bother about it. It is a binary file anyway. One 2 way to think is "Even it is an interface 1 it is still in a file.java".

Source: stackoverflow.com

[ACCEPTED]-Why classes compile to .class but interface does not to .interface-interface

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