question: public static String collapse ( String name ) { if ( name == null ) { return null ; } int breakPoint = name . lastIndexOf ( '.' ) ; if ( breakPoint < 0 ) { return name ; } return collapseQualifier ( name . substring ( 0 , breakPoint ) , true ) + name . substring ( breakPoint ) ; }
target:  Collapses a name.  Mainly intended for use with classnames, where an example might serve best to explain. Imagine you have a class named 'org.hibernate.internal.util.StringHelper'; calling collapse on that classname will result in 'o.h.u.StringHelper'.