Can't find junit classes even when specified in -classpath

Question

Hi folks,
I've a jarfile called SmokeTests.jar.
Within the manifest of this jar I have the following lines..
Class-Path: ./libs/junit.jar
Main-Class: mytests.AllTests
I create the jar using ant which converts this to ...
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.6.2
Created-By: 1.4.2_10-b03 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Main-Class: com.cognotec.otg.TestDealingService.AllTests
Class-Path: ./libs/junit.jar
the structure of folders is as follows.
SmokeTests
     |
     --->libs
               |
               --->junit.jar
     |
     --->distrib
               |
               --->SmokeTests.jarMy current working directory is the SmokeTests dir.
I've attempted to run the AllTests.class within the jar using the following cmd line
java -classpath ./libs/junit.jar -jar distrib/SmokeTests.jar
alas it doesn't work. I get the following error.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: junit/framework/Test
which implies that junit.jar isn't on the classpath?
I thought using the Class-Path: manifest entry you had to specify any external jars that your application would use i.e. ./libs/junit.jar and then you still have to include these in the classpath as I have done.
-classpath ./libs/junit.jar
Can anyone spot what i've done wrong?
Thanks,
Mark.

Answer 1

Turns out that my mistake was in presuming that the libraries referenced
in the Class-Path entry had to have relative paths to the working directory
from where the jar was executed but instead they had to be relative to the
location of the jar file itself that contains the Class-Path entry.
I was running
java -jar distrib/SmokeTests.jar
The libraries were in the libs folder which is adjacent to the distrib folder
the relative path to which is ../libs/ from the location of the jar file itself not ./libs
Painful.
Thanks,
Mark.