How Do I Automatically Generate A .jar File In An Eclipse Java Project

Question

I have an Eclipse Java project. It contains a folder named \"dist\". In that folder is a .jar file.

How can I set things up in this project to make sure th

Answer 1

Create a J2EE Utility project (Util). It lets you create an association with a J2EE project (ProjectX). When you edit the properties of ProjectX to depend upon the Util project, it shows Util as Util.jar. With the dependency declared, Eclipse will build the Util.jar when it has to build the Util project. If you have auto-build active for the Util project, the .jar file will be kept in sync each time the project is built. If your target project isn't a J2EE one, you can still use this solution but use a dummy J2EE parent project.

Here is the link to the help page for using the ANT task for building a .zip file from within Eclipse: http://help.eclipse.org/galileo/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.pde.doc.user/tasks/pde_feature_generating_ant.htm

An alternate solution is to use the Zip plugin. We used this over 5 years ago but stopped when WSAD included support for dependent projects as .jar files.