Question

I have a project which has some lib’s associated with it (in Build Path).

Now, when I export the project in jar, I have mulitple options e.g., eclipse creating a new manifest file (with just one line), create a runnable jar (where it will add the classpath information as well).

My question is, is there a simple way in eclipse where it will add the classpath libraries into the manifest (i dont want to create runnable jar). I know I can edit jar in various ways.
If the answer is “no, there is no direct way”, my next question is, “Why, this is a very common requirement, is not it” and eclipse does so while creating a runnable jar, then why not for non-runnable jars?

Answer 1

“Why, this is a very common requirement, is not it” and eclipse does
so while creating a runnable jar, then why not for non-runnable jars?

Who says it is a common requirement?
A jar file is just a library. Could be self-contained or dependent on other jars.
If you have a dependency for a jar you document it as dependency. You don’t distribute jars that include other jars.
E.g. if you include an apache library in your project you also download commons-loggingseparately as a dependency.
It is not included/bundled in the jar.
Otherwise you’ll end up with jars the size of 30 MB ….