Re: Problem executing Java programs from a Nautilus window?

From:

Knute Johnson <nospam@knutejohnson.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.help

Date:

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:56:36 -0700

Message-ID:

<7magp.92596$195.31563@newsfe05.iad>

On 03/16/2011 04:15 AM, Nigel Wade wrote:

Java does that, provided the Class-path: in the manifest of the main jar
uses relative paths. The base path the classloader uses to the locate
dependent jars is the location of that jar. For example, if you run the
jar /home/me/Java/jars/someProgram.jar, and the manifest contains
"Class-path: lib/some-lib.jar", then java will locate the jar file
/home/me/java/jars/lib/some-lib.jar.

You can use this from the command-line also, to run a jar located
anywhere on the filesystem. The main jar and its libraries can be
installed wherever you wish without having to modify the manifest. You
just need to maintain the relative paths of the main jar and its libraries.

If you want to locate other files in the same directory as the jar
itself you may be able to interrogate the classloader. It's not
something I've done, so don't know if it's possible.

If I run a jar which dumps all the system properties I can see one
called java.class.path, which contains the full path to the executable
jar. From this you could determine the directory containing the jar, to
access other files in that directory.

Nigel, thanks very much for that. The property java.class.path returns
the path to the .jar file. Using the canonical file and getting the
parent gives you the path of the local directory.

On another note, I found an old change to Nautilus that was supposed to
make the working directory the one displayed. It seems though that
somewhere along the way this change must have been reversed.

--

Knute Johnson
s/knute/nospam/