NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Jar (file format)

In computing, a JAR file (or Java ARchive) file used to distribute a set of Java classes. It is used to store compiled Java classes and associated metadata that can constitute a program. Should not be called a ZIP file foo.... Please go to the SUN - JAVA pages to find out why. All file compression formats should not be classified as "zip".... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to show its format. ... Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet Standard that extends the format of e-mail to support: text in character sets other than US-ASCII; non-text attachments; multi-part message bodies; and header information in non-ASCII character sets. ... A Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) is a string that uniquely identifies the type of a class of items. ... Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... A file archiver is a computer program that combines a number of files together into one archive file, or a series of archive files, for easier transportation or storage. ... In computer science and information theory, data compression or source coding is the process of encoding information using fewer bits (or other information-bearing units) than an unencoded representation would use through use of specific encoding schemes. ... The ZIP file format is a popular data compression and archival format. ... Memory (Random Access Memory) Look up computing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Java platform is the name for a computing environment, or platform, from Sun Microsystems which can run applications developed using the Java programming language and set of development tools. ... The Java source files (.java files) get compiled into . ... Metadata (Greek meta after and Latin data information) are data that describe other data. ...

JAR files can be created and extracted using the "jar" command that comes with the JDK. It can be done using zip tools, but as WinZip has a habit of renaming all-uppercase directories and files in lower case, this can raise support calls with whoever created the JAR or the tool authors themselves. WinRAR, on the other hand, retains the original case of filenames. In computing, a WAR file (short for Web Application Archive) is a ZIP file used to distribute a set of Java classes. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a Java technology that allows software developers to dynamically generate HTML, XML or other types of documents in response to a Web client request. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... In computing, RAR is a proprietary file format for data compression and archiving, developed by Eugene Roshal (hence the name RAR: Roshal ARchive). ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE (formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition or J2EE up to version 1. ... Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) is a Java-based technology solution for connecting application servers and enterprise information systems (EIS) as part of enterprise application integration (EAI) solutions. ... The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a Sun product aimed at Java developers. ... WinZip Computing Inc. ... WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility by Eugene Roshal. ...

A JAR file has a manifest file located in the path META-INF/MANIFEST.MF. The entries in the manifest file determine how the JAR file will be used. JAR files which are intended to be executed as standalone programs will have one of their classes specified as the "main" class. The manifest file would have an entry such as

These files can also include a Classpath entry, which identifies other JAR files to be loaded with the JAR. This entry consists of a list of absolute or relative paths to other JAR files. Although intended to simplify JAR use, in practice, it turns out to be notoriously brittle as it depends on all the relevant JARs being in the exact locations specified when the entry-point JAR was built. To change versions or locations of libraries, a new manifest is needed. The Classpath is an argument set on the command-line that tells the Java Virtual Machine where to look for user-defined classes and packages in Java programs. ...

A JAR file can be digitally signed. If so, the signature information is added to the manifest file. The JAR itself is not signed, but instead every file inside the archive is listed along with its checksum; it is these checksums that are signed. Multiple entities may sign the JAR file, changing the JAR file itself with each signing -but the signed files themselves remain valid. When the Java runtime loads signed JAR files, it can validate the signatures and refuse to load classes that do not match the signature. It can also support 'sealed' packages, in which the classloader will only permit Java classes to be loaded into the same package if they are all signed by the same entities. This prevents malicious code from being inserted into an existing package, and so gain access to package-scoped classes and data. In cryptography, a digital signature or digital signature scheme is a type of asymmetric cryptography used to simulate the security properties of a signature in digital, rather than written, form. ... The Java Classloader is a part of the Java Runtime Environment that dynamically loads Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine. ...

JAR files can be obfuscated so that a user of the JAR file doesn't get much information regarding the code it contains, or to reduce its size, which is useful in mobile phone applications. Obfuscate redirects here; for the Discipline from the Vampire: The Masquerade/World of Darkness fictional setting please see Discipline (World of Darkness)#Obfuscate. ...

For those Microsoft Windows users who prefer having Windows EXE files, tools such as JSmooth can be used to wrap JAR files into executables. Eclipse uses a small EXE launcher (eclipse.exe) to display the splash screen on startup and launch the application from the main JAR (startup.jar). Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... EXE is the common filename extension for denoting an executable file (a program) in the MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and OS/2 operating systems. ... JSmooth is a tool for wrapping Java JAR files into Windows Portable Executable EXE files. ... Eclipse is an open-source, platform-independent software framework, written primarily in Java, for delivering what the project calls rich-client applications, as opposed to thin client browser-based applications. ...

GNU jar or fastjar

The GNU Project has implemented the jar command by a program written in C. This variant claims to be much faster than the original Sun Microsystems jar program (written in the Java programming language). GNU jar is released under GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU logo, drawn by Etienne Suvasa The GNU Project was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. ... The C Programming Language, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the original edition that served for many years as an informal specification of the language The C programming language is a low_level standardized programming language developed in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie for use on the UNIX... Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... Java is an object-oriented applications programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. ... The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...

There is not much documentation around for this utility. GNU Project has this brief introduction. However, this is the jar version distributed with many Linux distributions and also with Cygwin for windows. The GNU logo, drawn by Etienne Suvasa The GNU Project was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. ... It has been suggested that Criticism of Linux be merged into this article or section. ... Cygwin is a collection of free software tools originally developed by Cygnus Solutions to allow various versions of Microsoft Windows to act somewhat like a Unix system. ...

Apache Ant Zip/JAR support

The Apache Ant build tool has its own package to read and write the Zip and JAR archives, including support for the Unix filesystem extensions. The org.apache.tools.zip package is released under the Apache Software Foundation license and is designed to be usable outside Ant. This code is fast and widely used. It creates most JAR files that are not created with Sun's utility, so could be considered fairly mature. Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. ... Apache Software Foundation Logo The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit corporation (classified as 501(c)(3) in the United States) to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. ...

Problems with the JAR format

The Ant team find that most of their support calls related to JAR file creation have two underlying causes.

See also

The Classpath is an argument set on the command-line that tells the Java Virtual Machine where to look for user-defined classes and packages in Java programs. ... JAR Hell usually occurs when a class file located in a JAR file can not be found or an older version from another JAR file is loaded. ...

External links

Codecs implementations

v • d • e

Video codecs
(Comparison)

MPEG-4 ASP

3ivx · DivX · FFmpeg MPEG-4 · HDX4 · Xvid

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

CoreAVC · QuickTime H.264 · x264 A codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. ... Look up Implementation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A video codec is a device or software module that enables video compression or decompression for digital video. ... This is a comparison of video codecs. ... MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard (ISO/IEC 14496-2). ... 3ivx is a video codec created by 3ivx Technologies. ... DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. ... FFmpeg is a collection of free software that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video. ... HDX4 is a MPEG4 codec developed by a German company named Jomigo Visual Technology. ... Xvid (formerly XviD) is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard. ... H.264, MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC (for Advanced Video Coding), is a digital video codec standard that is noted for achieving very high data compression. ... CoreAVC is a video decoder developed by CoreCodec, implementing the MPEG-4 AVC standard (also known as H.264) used, for example, in next-generation video disc formats HD DVD and Blu-Ray. ... QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc. ... x264 is a free software library for encoding H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video streams. ...

Lossless

CorePNG · FFV1 · Huffyuv · Lagarith · MSU Lossless Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. ... CorePNG is a lossless codec based on PNG. Essentially, each frame is compressed as a PNG, so if PNG does it, this codec does too. ... FFV1 which stands for FF video codec 1 is an experimental video encoder and decoder featuring lossless, intra-frame only and relatively high compression. ... Huffyuv (or HuffYUV) is a very fast, lossless Win32 video codec written by Ben Rudiak-Gould, meant to replace uncompressed YUV as a video capture format. ... Lagarith is an open source lossless video codec written by Ben Goldman. ... MSU Lossless video codec is an lossless video codec written by MSU Graphics&Media Lab Video Group. ...

Others

Cinepak · Dirac · Indeo · VP3 · VP7 · Pixlet · Snow · Tarkin · Theora · WMV Compressed with Cinepak, quality 40% Cinepak is a video codec, developed by Radius Inc to accommodate 1x (150 kbyte/s) CD-ROM transfer rates. ... Dirac is a prototype algorithm for the encoding and decoding (see codec) of raw video. ... Indeo Video (commonly known now simply as Indeo) is a video codec developed by Intel in 1992. ... VP3 was originally a proprietary video codec developed by On2 Technologies. ... TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. ... Pixlet is a video codec created by Apple Computer and based on wavelets, designed to enable viewing of full resolution, high resolution movies in real time at low DV data rates. ... Snow is an experimental video codec developed by Michael Niedermayer for the FFmpeg package. ... This page is about the video compression codec. ... Theora is a video codec being developed by the Xiph. ... Windows Media Video (WMV) is a generic name for the set of video codec technologies developed by Microsoft. ...

Audio codecs
(Comparison)

General

ADPCM · ATRAC · Dolby Digital · Musepack · TwinVQ · Vorbis · WMA An audio codec is a computer program that compresses/decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file format or streaming audio format. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a variety of audio codecs. ... Audio compression is a form of data compression designed to reduce the size of audio files. ... Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a modulation technique. ... ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms used to store information on MiniDiscs and other Sony-branded audio players. ... Dolby Digital logotype Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160-180 kbit/s. ... TwinVQ (transform-domain weighted interleaved vector quantization) is an audio compression technique developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT). ... Vorbis is an open source, lossy audio codec project headed by the Xiph. ... Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a proprietary compressed audio file format developed by Microsoft. ...

Speech/Voice

iLBC · IMBE · iSAC · QCELP · Speex · Truespeech Speech coding is the compression of speech (into a code) for transmission with speech codecs that use audio signal processing and speech processing techniques. ... The Internet Low Bit Rate Codec (iLBC) is a royalty free narrowband speech codec, developed by Global IP Sound (GIPS). ... IMBE a is speech coding standard. ... iSAC is a wideband speech codec, developed by Global IP Sound (GIPS). ... QCELP is a speech codec developed in 1994 to increase the speech quality of the IS-96A codec used earlier in CDMA networks. ... Speex is a free software speech codec that claims to be unencumbered by patent restrictions. ... Truespeech is a proprietary audio codec produced by the DSP Group. ...

Lossless

Apple Lossless · Dolby TrueHD · FLAC · Monkey's Audio · TTA · WavPack · WMA Lossless Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. ... Apple Lossless (also known as Apple Lossless Encoder, ALE, or Apple Lossless Audio Codec, ALAC) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. ... Dolby TrueHD logo Dolby TrueHD, from Dolby Laboratories, is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec, intended primarily for high-end home-entertainment equipment, such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. In this application, Dolby TrueHD competes with DTS-HD Master Audio, another lossless codec from Digital Theater System. ... FLAC, an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is a popular file format for audio data compression. ... Monkeyâ€™s Audio is a lossless audio compression codec. ... True Audio (abbreviated TTA) is a free, simple real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters which has shown satisfactory results comparing to majority of modern analogs. ... WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant. ... Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless is a lossless data lossless audio codec by Microsoft, released in early 2003. ...

Archivers
(Comparison)

Open Source

7-Zip · Ark · File Roller · KGB Archiver · PeaZip · The Unarchiver It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Comparison of file archivers. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file archivers. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... 7-Zip is an open source file archiver designed originally for the Microsoft Windows operating system, and later made available to other systems. ... Ark is an archiving tool for KDE, included into kdeutils package. ... File-roller is an archive manager for the GNOME environment. ... KGB Archiver is an open-source file archiver and data compression utility created by Tomasz Pawlak. ... PeaZip is an open source OS-portable file archiver, released under LGPL for Microsoft Windows and Linux (Linux version requires libgdk_pixbuf library). ... The Unarchiver is an open source data compression utility, which supports more formats than BOMArchiveHelper, the built-in archive unpacker program in Mac OS X. It can also handle filenames in foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems. ...

Freeware

DGCA · FilZip · GCA · IZArc · StuffIt Expander · TUGZip · Zipeg · ZipGenius · WinUHA This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... In computing, DGCA is a freeware compression utility created in 2001 by Shin-ichi Tsuruta (鶴田真一, Shin-ichi Tsuruta). ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... In computing, GCA is a freeware compression utility created in 2000 by Shin-ichi Tsuruta. ... IZArc is a freeware file archiver for Microsoft Windows. ... StuffIt Expander used to be a freeware, closed source data compression software utility developed by Allume Systems (formerly Aladdin Systems) It runs in Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux/UNIX. It does not compress files. ... TUGZip is a freeware file archiver for Microsoft Windows. ... Zipeg is a decompression application made by Leo Kuznetsov for Mac OS X that handles zip files. ... ZipGenius is a freeware file archiver designed for Microsoft Windows users, developed by Matteo Riso of M.Dev Software. ... UHarc is a solid, high-compression 386+ DOS and Windows file archiver with multimedia support. ...

Proprietary

ALZip · BOMArchiveHelper · MacBinary · PowerArchiver · Squeez · StuffIt · WinAce · WinRAR · WinRK · WinZip Proprietary software is software with restrictions on using, copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietor. ... ALZip is an archive and compression utility from ESTsoft for Microsoft Windows. ... BOMArchiveHelper is the default archive file handler in Mac OS X. It is a service application that has no GUI when double-clicked, rather it is invoked by opening its associated files or by choosing Create archive of file in the Finders contextual menu. ... Due to the Mac OS forked file structure, transferring Mac OS files to non-Macintosh computers is problematic. ... PowerArchiver is a proprietary file archiver designed for Microsoft Windows users, developed by ConeXware Inc. ... Squeez is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility by Speedproject. ... StuffIt is a family of software utilities for archiving and compressing files on the Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms: it was originally produced for the Macintosh and remains common on that platform. ... WinAce is an archiving program with its own powerful ACE compression format and built-in support for other common archive formats types such as ZIP, RAR and MS-CAB. The Mac OS X and Linux versions are called Unace and are command line programs. ... WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility by Eugene Roshal. ... WinRK is a commercial file archiver program for Microsoft Windows. ... WinZip Computing Inc. ...

Command line

ARC · ARJ · JAR · bzip2 · compress · gzip · Info-ZIP · LHA · lzop · NABOB · PAQ · PKZIP · RAR · SBC · UPX This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... ARC is a file format by SEA (System Enhancement Associates) that was very popular before Phil Katzs introduction of the ZIP format. ... ARJ is a tool for creating compressed file archives. ... JAR is a tool for creating compressed file archives. ... The correct title of this article is . ... Categories: Disambiguation | Software stubs | Data compression software ... The correct title of this article is . ... Info-ZIP is an open source version of Phil Katzs deflate and inflate routines used in his popular file compression program, PKZIP. The free code released by the Info-ZIP project under a BSD license spawned a horde of PKZIP imitators (WinZip, PicoZip, PowerArchiver, Turbozip, PowerZip and many more... LHA is a freeware compression utility and associated file format. ... LZOP is a free software file compression tool which uses LZO and is under the GPL license. ... NABOB was a joke file compression and archiving tool created by Thomas M. Tuerke (SysOp of Gravesend BBS) and Al Kalian (SysOp of Palladin BBS) at the height of the compression wars that resulted from the legal conflicts between ARC and Phil Katz. ... PAQ is a series of open source data compression archivers that have evolved through collaborative development to top rankings on several benchmarks measuring compression ratio (although at the expense of speed and memory usage). ... PKZIP is an archiving tool originally written by the late Phil Katz, and marketed by his company PKWARE, Inc. ... REDIRECT RAR (file format) ... SBC may refer to: // South Birmingham College, a college of Further Education in Birmingham, England St. ... UPX, the Ultimate Packer for eXecutables, is an open source executable packer (EXE packer) supporting a number of file formats. ...

(See Compression methods for methods and Compression formats and standards - for formats)

Contents

GNU jar or fastjar GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Apache Ant Zip/JAR support

Problems with the JAR format

See also

External links

GNU jar or fastjar