Mark, Niall
The manifest.mf file is a metadata file found in all JAR files. It contains key-value pair type entries, and, at a minimum tends to record the version of the JAR specification used by the archive (this is from memory, so I could be mistaken).
The entries in a manifest file have several purposes, but the one you are most likely to encounter later in your assignment is the Main-Class attribute, which you can use to make an executable JAR file. For example, if your main executable class was com.foo.bar.Clazz, you would have an entry in the manifest.mf file of your archive (called, say, my_archive.jar) like this:
then if you typed
the archive would be loaded and the main method in com.foo.bar.Clazz would be executed by the JVM. Packaging classes like this is helpful because it can avoid the need to state a classpath (either with the CLASSPATH environment variable or with the "-cp" option of the
java command) because you can putt all the classes you will need into the JAR.
The manifest.mf file that comes inside the archive containing your assignment probably only contains a couple of entries about versioning information. You don't need to pay it any attention.
Hope this helps.