Question

I have a Java console application that I am ready to deploy onto a Unix server. I am writing a shell script to run the application.

I plan to put my shell scripts in one folder, my application jar and dependent jars (spring, etc.) into a different folder and properties files (those that need to be maintained ‘live’) in a separate folder again. I would then have my shell script iterate through the files in the ‘jars’ and ‘properties’ folders, appending them to the classpath, before finally calling java …

Is this a ‘good’ deployment structure? Are there any guidelines for how to arrange files to maximise maintainability and stability? Are there obvious ‘wrong’ ways to do this that are best avoided?

I should add that, for a previous project, I put all shell scripts (those that start java processes and those that don’t) into a scripts folder, my application jar into a folder with the library jars in a library subfolder and external resources into a config subfolder. I then wrote a script that explicitly loads all the files. It was long winded to write and needs to be maintained whenever I upgrade a library jar. This time around I’d like to do it better. Also, it feels unnecessary to separate my application JAR from the libraries.

Answer 1

For what it’s worth, this is what we use;

/
    /class
        //package hierarchy here, raw .class files
    /lib
        //library jars here, apache commons, gson etc, all .jars
    /conf
        //.properties files go here, including ones for libraries
    /doc
        //program documentation files, typically .txt
        /javadocs
            //java doc html root
    /sh
        //shell scripts including execute.sh and compile.sh

We use ant for building, often have a src folder for the source tree if necessary. This way you just add /class and /lib to your classpath, and that never changes.