Sunday, May 16, 2010

Executable jar file from command line

Executing an executable jar (the jar contains the name of the main file in manifest) from command line.

Simple?

Say the jar name is exec.jar and is located in c:\java.
Go to :-
c:\
cd c:\java
java -jar exec.jar

This executes fine.
But why do I need to go into the directory where the jar exists. Say I am in the drive c: I can always do:-
java -classpath c:\java\exec.jar -jar exec.jar
Unable to access jarfile exec.jar
No it does not work.

Lets try set classpath=.;c:\java\exec.jar;
and then execute
java -jar exec.jar
Still the same error

Now lets try
java -jar c:\java\exec.jar
Works fine...

But why is the classpath not working.
The reason is provided in the java tool documentation from the Sun site.

"-jar Execute a program encapsulated in a JAR file.
.....
......
When you use this option, the JAR file is the source of all user classes, and other user class path settings are ignored. "


The classpath option does not work with java -jar option.

ref: java tool documentation

Thus the options if you want to execute a jar file are:-
  • Go to the directory of jar and execute the java -jar exec.jar
  • From any other directory execute java -jar c:\java\exec.jar
  • If you want to read it from the classpath, use the workaround by retrieving the name of the main class from mainifest and executing it:-
  • java -classpath c:\java\exec.jar Main