What is JAR?

Hi
This might be a stupid question, but what is a JAR-file and what does it do?

it's a Java ARchive. Basically, you can think of it as a zip file of your compiled .class files (and other resources like .jpg or whatever). They are used for distributing your application.

i use IZArc to unzip them so i can see what class are in them. really helps......

Any application that can handle zip files can handle jar files -- they're just zip files with a .jar file type.

If you've got a Java JDK installed, the jar command line command can be used.

it also used to easily execute the program that you compiled. "Executable JAR"

You should search first. You can type "jar file" into Wikipedia (or Google, which gives the Wikipedia page as its top answer) and get a comprehensive answer without asking other people to type out an answer for you.

I think Wikipedia is one of the default search engines on Firefox, so it's literally about 3 clicks away.

Luigi Plinge wrote:You should search first. You can type "jar file" into Wikipedia (or Google, which gives the Wikipedia page as its top answer) and get a comprehensive answer without asking other people to type out an answer for you.

I think Wikipedia is one of the default search engines on Firefox, so it's literally about 3 clicks away.

Your'e right. I was to quick to post, but a bit late to do anything about that. Will search in the future tho.

Thanks for the answers everyone!

bill steve wrote:i use IZArc to unzip them so i can see what class are in them. really helps......

You can open JAR files with tools that handle ZIP files. But the standard program that's included with the JDK to work with JAR files is the jar tool. It doesn't have a GUI, it works on the command line only.

And here you can find the official documentation about JAR files: JAR File Overview.

Luigi Plinge wrote:You should search first. . . .

And try searching here under the "deployment" heading.