Is there a tool out there for minifying java source code?
I am aware there is not much practical need for such a tool, but I am interested to reduce some students' code to 'bare bones' to show how their variable names are interpreted (sort-of -- it will heopfully re-enforce that their choice of variable names are disregarded) by the compiler. (The next step in this pedagogical process might be to show them the compiled code).
Thanks.
In the java world we mostly speak, due to the purpose, of obfuscation (even if in my opinion the impact on application file size can be useful, I used it a lot on Android applications a few years ago).
The best java obfuscator is probably Progard. Like all of them, it can reduce all (non exported) class and/or variable names to just a letter, which is part of the obfuscation as well as part of a minification.
You will have to decompile the bytecode afterwards if you want to show some java.