Jar and manifest

[Justin Samuel]

Hello All,

I am new to Java programming. Can you please suggest me of what exactly is a jar file and especially the manifest file within it.

Regards,
-Justin Samuel

[Rahul Bhattacharjee]

Jar is a way to bundle all you java class files and resource for easy delivery .Imagine you want to email a set of files to your friend.For convenience you would zip that and attache in email.

It also has a MENIFEST.MF file for storing metadata information about the content of the jar.
Even you can put the main class name in an attribute of MENIFEST.MF file to make the jar executable.You can have your own custom attribures also.

[Jesper de Jong]

See: The Java Tutorial - Packaging Programs in JAR Files

[Justin Samuel]

Thanks a lot for that explanation