including an exe file to jar

Question

I have written a java program that is actually works as a gui to an existing command line program. so in basic all my program does is Runtime.getRuntime().exec("myprogram parameter");. So I have exported my java source as a executable-jar file by using Eclipse IDE and it is working nice, however I indeed need to include this myprogram.exe to the directory of the generated jar file inorder to work.

Now I am looking for a way to include myprogram.exe inside the jar file so I can keep it bundled as a single file, a method using using Eclipse would be preferred.

Answer 1

You can simply jar it up as an extra resource (like a .css, .properties etc.).

When your Java program runs, extract the .exe using Class.getResourceAsStream() and write it to a temporary directory in order to run it from there (since you can't run it directly from the .jar file).