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I have a property file for a client project. I want to export the client as runnable jar, but the properties file should not be integrated into this jar. Because I want of course make edits to it, without having to recompile the jar client file.

How can I export it this way with eclipse?

membersound
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  • *"Because I want of course make edits to it, without having to recompile the jar client file."* It takes just moments to rebuild (and if necessary sign) a Jar. If the user needs to edit the properties, that is a different matter. – Andrew Thompson Oct 01 '12 at 13:36
  • yes later the user should be making edits to the file. atm it's only me, sorry for misleading. – membersound Oct 01 '12 at 13:39

4 Answers4

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I'm not currently using Java, but i once used Eclipse to export a runnable JAR. I used the Properties to store the settings and the file was generated automatically in the surrounding folder of the Jar-File. I don't know if this helps you, but it might be a point to start with....

Sebastian
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You have to either put them in your project workspace so it is inside the jar (but this is not the case since you do not want that) or load them from a predefined directory, for example you could demand properties file to always be in the same directory as the runnable jar file.

By the way, you don't have to recompile your project if you put your properties file inside a jar. A jar file is just a package, you can unpack it, make edits to your properties file and then pack it again. It will work just as you demand.

If you change your mind, see this post.

Community
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Marcin Krzysiak
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If you want the properties file in the same directory as your JAR file, just add an extra step to your Ant build to zip up the properties file and the JAR file.

If not, have your Java code create the properties file where you want it the first time the Java application is run.

Gilbert Le Blanc
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It does not seem to be possible to do this using standard Eclipse's export as runnable JAR (right click project -> Export -> Runnable JAR file -> Save as ANT script). However, Eclipse allows you to store the definition of your export as an Ant file, that one can modify later on.

The modification can look like below (I marked the modified parts with comments; it should be easy to compare with a script that your Eclipse generated).

<target name="create_run_jar">
    <jar destfile="/mytargetlib/myjar.jar">
        <manifest>
            <attribute name="Main-Class" value="Main"/>
              <!-- Here we only add lib/properties, the rest should be pre-generated by Eclipse -->
            <attribute name="Class-Path" value=". lib/myjar1.jar lib/myjar2.jar lib/properties"/>
        </manifest>
        <fileset dir="/bin" excludes="**/*.properties" /> 
    </jar>
    <delete dir="/mytargetdir/lib"/>
    <mkdir dir="/mytargetdir/lib"/>       
    <copy file="myjar.jar" todir="/mytargetdir/lib"/>
    <copy file="/myprojectdir/lib/myjar1.jar" todir="/mytargetdir/lib"/>
    <copy file="/myprojectdir/lib/myjar2.jar" todir="/mytargetdir/lib"/>
      <!-- Again, all the above was generated by Eclipse. We only add a copy of our property file --> 
        <mkdir dir="/mytargetdir/lib/properties"/>
        <copy file="/myprojectdir/properties/mypropertyfile.properties" todir="/mytargetdir/lib/properties"/>
      <!-- end of our addition --> 
</target>
david a.
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