Java import statement syntax

Question

This is a simple question, but I am really bugged by it. I was trying to find a duplicate, and googled it, but I was more surprised when I couldn't find a satisfying answer.

import java.util.Scanner; 

In this statement .Scanner is the class,

.util is the name of the package

What is java or javax or whatever would stand before the first period in general?

UPDATE:

I also found this picture:

http://www.javatpoint.com/package

Is it true?

Answer 1

Classes in Java are identified by a fully qualified name consisting in a concatenation of the package of the class and the name of the class (and any outer classes, if any). In general, in an import statement like:

import foo.bar.baz.MyClass;

everything except the last dot-separated field is the package name (foo.bar.baz) and the last field is the class name (MyClass). In your example, java.util is the package name and Scanner is the class name.

The process is actually a bit more complicated, as inner/nested classes and interfaces may be involved, but you get the idea.