Bug 401262

Summary: [refactoring] [rename] [extract local] If possible, report name conflicts before starting preview
Product: [Eclipse Project] JDT Reporter: Mohsen Vakilian <reprogrammer>
Component: UIAssignee: JDT-UI-Inbox <jdt-ui-inbox>
Status: ASSIGNED --- QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P3 CC: daniel_megert, reprogrammer
Version: 4.2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
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This screenshot of the Rename Package refactoring shows how this automated refactoring warns the user about a name conflict immediately the first input page. none

Description Mohsen Vakilian CLA 2013-02-19 23:59:34 EST 
Created attachment 227311 [details]
This screenshot of the Rename Package refactoring shows how this automated refactoring warns the user about a name conflict immediately the first input page.

Eclipse refactorings are good at warning the user about unconventional names immediately. The refactoring tool should warn users about conflicting names immediately as they type the names on the refactoring wizard input page.

Rename Package warns the user about conflicting names on the first input page, but, other refactorings like Extract Local Variable, Rename Local Variable, Package, Compilation Unit, Type, Method and Field report the conflicting name on a separate page after the user indicates that he/she is willing to apply the refactoring. This causes additional overhead, because the user has to navigate back to the first page of the wizard to change the name.

14 of the participants of the CodingSpectator study <http://codingspectator.cs.illinois.edu/> got error messages related to name conflicts from Eclipse in a total of 43 refactoring invocations. The participants proceeded with the refactoring in 20 cases and canceled it in the remaining 23 cases.