Executing a jar file from an arbitrary folder

Question

I got a small problem in detemining the path of my application's jar file. I am starting the application by executing a batch, lets say MyApp.bat (using it on windows and unix), this batch file consists of one line 'java -jar MyApp.jar', MyApp.jar being in the same folder.
Now lets say MyApp.bat and MyApp.jar are in folder 'A' and my current working directory is a parallel folder 'B', so I can invoke the batch file from there(!) by executing '../A/MyApp.bat'. But now the VM tries to find MyApp in the current working directory which is still 'B' and not 'A'. A simple solution would be to use a script which determines the directory of MyApp.jar and include the generated path in the call to the VM (I didn't try yet, but I guess this will awkward doing it on windows)
Since I don't think I am the first person executing a java program via a script from an arbitrary folder in a file system, I hoped that there might be a more elegant way. Unfortunately I couldn't find another solution yet.
Regards,
Stefan

Answer 1

In MyApp.bat your line should read (NT/2K/XP/2003/Vista):java -jar "%~dp0MyApp.jar"Regards