How can I specify dependencies in the manifest file and then to include it into my .jar file?

Question

I generated .class files by the following command:

javac -cp \\directoryName\\external.jar myPackageDirectory\\First.java myPackageDirectory\\Second.java


        

Answer 1

Further to what Joachim Sauer (very correctly) says, there is a way to pack your dependency jars into the same jar as your own code. The programs that accomplish this create a super-main class and manipulate the classpath to find the dependent jars in your resulting jar.

Several programs can do this; one of them is called OneJar.

Answer 2

First of all: you don't seem to compile a class called MainClass and all your .java files seem to be in a package, so I assume that MainClass is just a placeholder and you actually use the correct class name here.

You need to specify a Class-Path header that mentions your external .jar to your manifest.txt and deliver the .jar file together with your jar. You need to do this in addition to specifying the -cp at compile time.