Long line mangling

Question

When creating a jar file and specify a class-path for the manifest, the jar utility mangles my nicely-divide lines. For example...
Given a manifest file (mani.txt) that includesClass-Path: jar1.jar
jar2.jar
jar3.jar
...Then running the commands:
jar -cfm Mine.jar mani.txt *
jar -xf Mine.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
cat META-INF/MANIFEST.MFI see a new class-path entry:
Class-Path: jar1.jar jar2.jar jar3.jar ...This entry includes all of the individual lines as before, but with line breaks removed. This is fine, until I hit the 72 byte limit for the total length. Then the jar utility inserts an line break at EXACTLY 72 bytes (breaking jar names/paths across lines). This prevents the files specified from being found. For example, I might see:
Class-Path: path/jar1.jar ... path/ja
rX.jar path/jarX1.jarHow can I get the jar command to include my pre-divided line set exactly as I divided it?
I'm running java 1.5.0_13 on Mac OS X 10 v. 10.5.3 (but similar behavior was observed on a OS X v10.4 and a Red-Hat linux box).

Answer 1

Please allow me to clarify. I AM NOT trying to refer to other jar files that are contained in my jar file. Rather, I am trying to use the jar Class-Path mechanism to allow me to use my jar with other jars that reside in various directories. This is described as a method to use multiple jars together by [The Java Tutorials|http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/deployment/jar/downman.html] .
According to JavaGlossary , this is the only way to specify the classpath when using the -jar switch invoking from the command line (the -cp, -classpath and environment variables being ignored). Also according to JavaGlossary, lines of the manifest may not exceed 72 bytes.
Building off of various examples I found in other forums, I constructed a Class-Path entry for my manifest file. My problem is the re-formating that the 'jar' command seems to be performing. How can I get my manifests Class-Path entry into my jar file without it merging it all into one line then inserting its own line breaks? Stated slightly different, the 'jar' tool takes the 'm' option as a list of pairs to name:value pairs to modify the Class-Path with. Is there a way I can instruct the jar utility to include the values preserving whitespace, or to bypassing the auto generation and just insert a manifest file of my crafting directly?