Question about Executable JAR Files

Question

Is it possible to make an executable JAR file that has all of the *.class files, all of the *.jar archives used, etc. packaged into one file that doesn't need these external files within the same directory? I've been having a ton of trouble finding the answer to this. (If it's blatantly obvious, please forgive me.)

Answer 1

Hello,
I went through the same thing recently. Here is a piece of the build file I use:
<project name="MyProj" basedir="." default="main">
    <property name="src.dir"     value="src"/>
    <property name="build.dir"   value="build"/>
    <property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/>
    <property name="jar.dir"     value="${build.dir}/jar"/>
    <property name="main-class"  value="MyProj.Main"/>
    <property name="lib.dir"     value="lib"/>
    <path id="classpath">
        <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/>
    </path>
    <target name="compile">
        <mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/>
        <javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}" classpathref="classpath"/>
    </target>
    <target name="jar" depends="compile">
        <mkdir dir="${jar.dir}"/>
        <jar destfile="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" basedir="${classes.dir}">
          <zipfileset src="lib/commons-codec-1.3.jar"/>
          <zipfileset src="lib/commons-fileupload-1.1.1.jar"/>
          <zipfileset src="lib/commons-httpclient-3.0.1.jar"/>
            <manifest>
                <attribute name="Main-Class" value="${main-class}"/>
            </manifest>
        </jar>
    </target>
    <target name="main" depends="clean,run"/>
</project>Note the <zipfileset> tags that contain the .jars.
There are, however, many good reasons to not do this. Some were already mentioned, another is in the case of update external libraries, you might not want to rebuild your whole project, replacing a jar may be easier.
Good luck,
-Sam