Code templates and code snippets

In the previous section, we saw how to create and customize templates for different file types. This can be very useful when creating new files.

NetBeans takes automatic code creation even further, however, with the ability to define both code templates and code snippets. Code templates allow a short piece of code to be entered within the main source code editor that is expanded into a larger template upon pressing the Tab key.

Inserting code using code templates

First, let's take a look at code templates. NetBeans provides over 100 code templates for the Java language and many more for JavaScript, HTML, and others. Some of the more common code templates are shown in the following table:

Code template	Description
pf	Expands to public final
do	Expands into a do … while loop
fori	Expands to a for loop
log	Expands to a Logger class to output a log entry
serr	Expands to System.err.println("");
sout	Expands to System.out.println("");
...