MANIFEST.MF Classpath from ANT

Although unsupported, it is possible to create dependencies in MANIFEST.MF files in the format

Class-Path: lib/hibernate3.jar lib/log4j.jar

On the gig i currently work in we have all our 3rd party libs (jar-files) in a structure like this lib/hibernate-3.0.5. To generate the manifest by hand is not optimal, so we would like ANT to generate the manifest automatically. We use ant 1.6.2, and I believe a 1.6 should be a minimum to use this hack
This is how we solved the problem

  1. First of, define the properties

  2. Next of, modify you jar-making target. This is were the “hack” is, we store all the depenncies in a temp variable (dep.libs)<pathconvert property=”dep.libs” pathsep=” “>
    <mapper>
    <chainedmapper>
    <!– remove the full path –>
    <flattenmapper />
    <!– prefix every .jar with lib/ –>
    <globmapper from=”*” to=”lib/*” />
    </chainedmapper>
    </mapper>

    <path>
    <fileset dir=”${lib.dir}”>
    <include name=”**/*.jar” />
    </fileset>
    </path>
    </pathconvert>

    <!– create the actual jar –>
    <jar jarfile=”${build.dir}/myjar.jar” basedir=”${build.dir}/classes”>
    <manifest>
    <!– other manifest details goes here –>
    <!– insert our formated libs –>
    <attribute name=”Class-Path” value=”${dep.libs}” />
    </manifest>
    </jar>
    </target>

February 13, 2006 | Filed Under java

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