Eclipse: Adding all the jars from a folder in java classpath

Question

Is there a way to include all the jar files within a directory in the classpath using Eclipse?

It can be done by using command line by the following command:

java -cp "lib/*" my.package.Main

But how can it be done from eclipse?

EDIT: I edited the .classpath entry in my project floder as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<classpath>
    <classpathentry kind="src" path="src"/> 
    <classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="F:/Program Files/Java/log4j/apache-log4j-2.0-alpha2-bin/*"/>
    <classpathentry kind="output" path="classes"/>
</classpath>

Here F:/Program Files/Java/log4j/apache-log4j-2.0-alpha2-bin/ is the folder where the jar files are. But it didn't work.

UPDATE: It seems that there is no direct way to do this. And may be the easiest solution will be creating a user library.

Answer 1

Instead of using a folder outside of your project, copy all necessary JARs into a lib/ folder inside of your project.

Now you can select all JARs in that folder, right click -> Build Path -> Add To Build Path.

Alternatively, you can define a "User Library" which contains all the JARs and add that single item to your project's build path.

But the best solution IMO, is to use Maven for this. Get the M2E Plugin for Eclipse and convert your project to a Maven project. Now you can use "Add Dependency" to add millions of other project (including everything they need) to your project. Maven will download and manage the dependencies for you.

Answer 2

Not without a Plug-in. I do not know why this feature is not a basic part of eclipse.

https://github.com/benjchristensen/SimpleDirectoryContainer_EclipsePlugin

Answer 3

Right Click Project -> Properties.. -> Java Build Path -> Libraries -> Add Class Folder...