How to combine library with my jar?

Question

Ok so i wrote a program that makes use of a 3rd party open source library and i want to package it with my program in a single jar. I\'m using netbeans 6.8 and everything I\

Answer 1

I realize that this doesn't achieve exactly what you want, but I'll describe the customary method of distributing a standalone application. If it does meet your needs, you'll find that it's better supported by tools and more readily understood by users, because it follows established conventions.

Put your code in a jar (I'll call it app.jar) along with a META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file with entries like this:

Main-Class: com.y.app.AppMain
Class-path: third-party.jar blort.jar foo.jar

Then, you can throw all of the jars into a directory and run AppMain like this:

java -jar app.jar

If you want, you can put the third-party libraries in a single directory like lib and refer to them in the Class-path attribute using a path relative to the main jar: lib/third-party.jar That helps keep your distribution tidy.