What Are Packages?
A package allows a developer to group classes (and interfaces) together. These classes will all be related in some way – they might all be to do with a specific application or perform a specific set of tasks. For example, the Java API is full of packages. One of them is the javax.xml package. It and its subpackages contain all the classes in the Java API to do with handling XML.
Defining a Package
To group classes into a package each class must have a package statement defined at the top of its .java file. It lets the compiler know which package the class belongs to and must be the first line of code. For example, imagine you're making a simple Battleships game. It makes sense to put all the classes needed in a package called battleships:
package battleships
class GameBoard
{
}
Every class with the above package statement at the top will now be part of the Battleships package.
Typically packages are stored in a corresponding directory on the filesystem but it is possible to store them in a database. The directory on the filesystem must have the same name as the package. It's where all the classes belonging to that package are stored. For example, if the battleships package contains the classes GameBoard, Ship, ClientGUI then there will be files called GameBoard.java, Ship.java and ClientGUI.java stored in a directory call battleships.
