How to read MANIFEST.MF file from JAR using Bash

Question

I need to read MANIFEST.MF maven manifest file from "some.jar" using bash

jar files are just zip files. – Graham Clark Aug 15 '11 at 14:28 — Graham Clark, Aug 15 '11 at 14:28

score 184 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 15 '11 at 14:33

$ unzip -q -c myarchive.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

-q will suppress verbose output from the unzip program
-c will extract to stdout

Example:

$ unzip -q -c commons-lang-2.4.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.7.0
Created-By: 1.5.0_13-119 (Apple Inc.)
Package: org.apache.commons.lang
Extension-Name: commons-lang
Specification-Version: 2.4
Specification-Vendor: Apache Software Foundation
Specification-Title: Commons Lang
Implementation-Version: 2.4
Implementation-Vendor: Apache Software Foundation
Implementation-Title: Commons Lang
Implementation-Vendor-Id: org.apache
X-Compile-Source-JDK: 1.3
X-Compile-Target-JDK: 1.2

Alternatively you can use -p instead of -q -c.

-p extract files to pipe (stdout). Nothing but the file data is sent to stdout, and the files are always extracted in binary format, just as they are stored (no conversions).

I know this thread is old, but for whom it may concern: As from the manual, extracting using -p or -c will print output in binary form. If you need to parse this output somehow (for example to associative array), you should force text representation with -aa argument, to have it correct. — tcigler, Sep 27 '16 at 13:36

score 24 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 15 '11 at 14:33

use unzip:

$ unzip -q -c $JARFILE_PATH META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

that will quietly (-q) read the path META-INF/MANIFEST.MF from the jarfile (which is compressed using the zip format) to stdout (-c). You can then pipe the output to other command to answer questions like 'what is the main class for this jar:

$ unzip -q -c $JARFILE_PATH META-INF/MANIFEST.MF | grep 'Main-Class' | cut -d ':' -f 2

(this removes all lines which don't contain the string Main-Class, then splits the line at :, keeping only the second field, the class name). Of course, either define $JARFILE_PATH appropriately or replace $JARFILE_PATH with the path to a jarfile you're interested in.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 15 '11 at 14:33

4

Depending on your distribution, install the unzip package. Then simply issue

unzip -p YOUR_FILE.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

This will dump the contents to STDOUT.

HTH

answered Aug 15 '11 at 14:33

Zsolt Botykai

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rlovtang · Answer 4 · 2016-03-01T12:42:53.250

2

$ tar xfO some.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

x extracts and O redirects to stdout.

Note: Seem to work only in bsdtar, not GNU tar.

edited Mar 01 '16 at 12:42

answered Jun 09 '15 at 08:56

rlovtang

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 26 '15 at 22:18

Others have been posting about using unzip -p and piping to grep or awk or whatever you need. While that works for most cases, it's worth noting that because of the 72 characters-per-line limit of MANIFEST.MF, you may be grepping for keys whose values are split across multiple lines and will therefore be very difficult to parse. I'd love to see a CLI tool that can actually pull a rendered value out of the file.

http://delaltctrl.blogspot.com/2009/11/manifestmf-apparently-you-are-just.html

I added an answer with a Groovy script that uses Java's API to obtain and print the rendered key/value pairs, as well as a bash-friendly one-liner to invoke it. — ctrueden, Apr 28 '20 at 22:46

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 28 '20 at 22:43

The following Groovy script uses Java's API to parse the manifest, avoiding issues with the manifest format's weird line breaking:

#!/usr/bin/env groovy
for (arg in args) {
  println("[$arg]")
  jarPath = new java.io.File(arg).getAbsolutePath()
  jarURL = new java.net.URL("jar:file:" + jarPath + "!/")
  m = jarURL.openConnection().getManifest()
  m.getMainAttributes().each { k, v -> println("$k = $v") }
}

Pass JAR files as arguments:

$ groovy manifest.groovy ~/.m2/repository/junit/junit/4.13/junit-4.13.jar
[/Users/curtis/.m2/repository/junit/junit/4.13/junit-4.13.jar]
Implementation-Title = JUnit
Automatic-Module-Name = junit
Implementation-Version = 4.13
Archiver-Version = Plexus Archiver
Built-By = marc
Implementation-Vendor-Id = junit
Build-Jdk = 1.6.0_65
Created-By = Apache Maven 3.1.1
Implementation-URL = http://junit.org
Manifest-Version = 1.0
Implementation-Vendor = JUnit

Or if you're desperate for a one-liner:

groovy -e 'new java.net.URL("jar:file:" + new java.io.File(args[0]).getAbsolutePath() + "!/").openConnection().getManifest().getMainAttributes().each { k, v -> println("$k = $v") }' ~/.m2/repository/junit/junit/4.13/junit-4.13.jar

How to read MANIFEST.MF file from JAR using Bash

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