Why a separate step to transform code genrator templates?

[kspangsege]

Apparently, there is a separate step in the build process that transforms the templates of the code generator from individual files into strings inside a Java class.

Why did we do that?

In my opinion, it serves only to complicate the build process.

Why don't we simply include the template files inside the JAR file? One would then have to use getResource() or getResourceAsStream() on Class or ClassLoader.

[nmihajlovski]

This is also a work-around for a resource loading problem I had when trying the getResourceAsStream() and similar approaches. I agree your suggested approach is elegant, it works fine when executing the annotation processing from the console, but at that time I didn't manage to load a resource file from a JAR that is configured for annotation processing in Eclipse (and I am still not sure if it is possible).

Anyway, if the annotation processing in future is executed inside an Eclipse plug-in, the problem will disappear and the work-around won't be needed anymore.