Question

I tried to create a jar file from a java project, which uses some external jars. I created a lib folder and put all the jars I need there.

I run the project in eclipse by adding all the jars in the lib folder to the Build Path and it works ok.

When I try to create the jar with ant from build.xml, it seems ok, no error is shown.

When I try to run the jar, I get the message “Invalid or corupt jarfile”.

In build.xml:
I define the path to use for compiling:

<path id="project.classpath">  
     <fileset dir="${lib}">
         <include name="**/*.jar"/>
     </fileset>
</path>

This is the target for the compilation:

<target name="compile" depends="init" description="compile the source " >
    <!-- Compile the java code from ${src} into ${build} -->
    <javac srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build}">  
          <classpath refid="project.classpath"/>  
    </javac>  
</target>

And this is the target for making the jar file:

<target name="dist" depends="compile" description="generate the distribution" >
      <mkdir dir="${dist}"/>
      <!-- Put everything in ${build} into the MyProject-${DSTAMP}.jar file -->
      <jar jarfile="${dist}/MyProject-${DSTAMP}.jar" basedir="${build}"> 
          <manifest>
            <attribute name="Main-Class" value="${main}" />
            <attribute name="Class-Path:" value="lib/**/*.*"/>
          </manifest>
          <fileset dir="${src}" includes="images/**/*.*" />
       </jar>
       <echo file="${dist}/start.bat" message="java -jar MyProject-${DSTAMP}.jar" />
  </target>

Can you please tell me what have I done wrong?

Answer 1

First remove the colon after Class-Path: to match

<attribute name="Class-Path" value="lib/**/*.*"/>

Then I suggest reading

HOWTO Create MANIFEST.MF Classpath From Ant or better using Manifestclasspath