How to exclude a specific jar from java classpath - java

I am using this below structure to set classpath in my java application.
How can I exclude a specific jar that is loading in runtime.
#!/bin/sh
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java
PATH=/usr/local/java/bin:${PATH}
cd /home/ala/DevDaily/Musubi
THE_CLASSPATH=
for i in `ls ./lib/*.jar`
do
THE_CLASSPATH=${THE_CLASSPATH}:${i}
done

Perhaps this similar question can help you?
Deny access to certain class files in a dependency jar
If your case is more complex, and you have another dependency which needs the 'old' implementation of the method and you cannot modify it another solution might be to update the class in the older jar with a 'smarter' class which can hold two implementations dependent on your two callers.
The following code will obtain and print the name of the caller's package and class, after which you can decide your different behaviors.
StackTraceElement[] stackTrace = new Throwable().getStackTrace();
String name = stackTrace[1].getClassName();
System.out.println(name);
This solution is incredibly ill-advised, and defeats the entire purpose of the jar, but it might be a quick fix to your problem.

Related

Overriding classes in Java

Can I use ClassLoader's definePackage to override some packages from inside a jar?
For example, the application currently contains "javax.xml.bind" from abc.jar. If I call ClassLoader.definePackage(def.jar), in which the def.jar contains another version of javax.xml.bind, can I replace the classpath for the entire application to point to that of def.jar? Thanks.
No, you definitely can not use ClassLoader.definePackage to "override" some packages from inside a jar.
If I understand correctly, you want to make your JVM load any class under javax.xml.bind from def.jar while all other ones from abc.jar. In this case you can (in my personal order of preference):
1) Put def.jar before abc.jar in the CLASSPATH. This requires that no class you want loaded from abc.jar is present in def.jar.
2) Unzip def.jar, abc.jar, or both, and remove any conflicting classes so it is really irrelevant which jar comes first in the CLASSPATH. Then re-zip them. Or you can do this only on one jar and put it before the other.
3) Use a configurable classloader (sorry, no public domain one that I know of; let me know if you find one). This could be an interesting topic for an OS project, except that several initiatives with similar (but much broader) objectives are already ongoing, some at the core of the language.
4) Create a classloader for this purpose, probably extending the default one.

Compile-time define in java [duplicate]

When I used to write libraries in C/C++ I got into the habit of having a method to return the compile date/time. This was always a compiled into the library so would differentiate builds of the library. I got this by returning a #define in the code:
C++:
#ifdef _BuildDateTime_
char* SomeClass::getBuildDateTime() {
return _BuildDateTime_;
}
#else
char* SomeClass::getBuildDateTime() {
return "Undefined";
}
#endif
Then on the compile I had a '-D_BuildDateTime_=Date' in the build script.
Is there any way to achieve this or similar in Java without needing to remember to edit any files manually or distributing any seperate files.
One suggestion I got from a co-worker was to get the ant file to create a file on the classpath and to package that into the JAR and have it read by the method.
Something like (assuming the file created was called 'DateTime.dat'):
// I know Exceptions and proper open/closing
// of the file are not done. This is just
// to explain the point!
String getBuildDateTime() {
return new BufferedReader(getClass()
.getResourceAsStream("DateTime.dat")).readLine();
}
To my mind that's a hack and could be circumvented/broken by someone having a similarly named file outside the JAR, but on the classpath.
Anyway, my question is whether there is any way to inject a constant into a class at compile time
EDIT
The reason I consider using an externally generated file in the JAR a hack is because this is) a library and will be embedded in client apps. These client apps may define their own classloaders meaning I can't rely on the standard JVM class loading rules.
My personal preference would be to go with using the date from the JAR file as suggested by serg10.
I would favour the standards based approach. Put your version information (along with other useful publisher stuff such as build number, subversion revision number, author, company details, etc) in the jar's Manifest File.
This is a well documented and understood Java specification. Strong tool support exists for creating manifest files (a core Ant task for example, or the maven jar plugin). These can help with setting some of the attributes automatically - I have maven configured to put the jar's maven version number, Subversion revision and timestamp into the manifest for me at build time.
You can read the contents of the manifest at runtime with standard java api calls - something like:
import java.util.jar.*;
...
JarFile myJar = new JarFile("nameOfJar.jar"); // various constructors available
Manifest manifest = myJar.getManifest();
Map<String,Attributes> manifestContents = manifest.getAttributes();
To me, that feels like a more Java standard approach, so will probably prove more easy for subsequent code maintainers to follow.
I remember seeing something similar in an open source project:
class Version... {
public static String tstamp() {
return "#BUILDTIME#";
}
}
in a template file. With Ant's filtering copy you can give this macro a value:
<copy src="templatefile" dst="Version.java" filtering="true">
<filter token="BUILDTIME" value="${build.tstamp}" />
</copy>
use this to create a Version.java source file in your build process, before the compilation step.
AFAIK there is not a way to do this with javac. This can easily be done with Ant -- I would create a first class object called BuildTimestamp.java and generate that file at compile time via an Ant target.
Here's an Ant type that will be helpful.
Unless you want to run your Java source through a C/C++ Preprocessor (which is a BIG NO-NO), use the jar method. There are other ways to get the correct resources out of a jar to make sure someone didn't put a duplicate resource on the classpath. You could also consider using the Jar manifest for this. My project does exactly what you're trying to do (with build dates, revisions, author, etc) using the manifest.
You'll want to use this:
Enumeration<URL> resources = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResources("META-INF/MANIFEST.MF");
This will get you ALL of the manifests on the classpath. You can figure out which jar they can from by parsing the URL.
Personally I'd go for a separate properties file in your jar that you'd load at runtime... The classloader has a defined order for searching for files - I can't remember how it works exactly off hand, but I don't think another file with the same name somewhere on the classpath would be likely to cause issues.
But another way you could do it would be to use Ant to copy your .java files into a different directory before compiling them, filtering in String constants as appropriate. You could use something like:
public String getBuildDateTime() {
return "#BUILD_DATE_TIME#";
}
and write a filter in your Ant file to replace that with a build property.
Perhaps a more Java-style way of indicating your library's version would be to add a version number to the JAR's manifest, as described in the manifest documentation.
One suggestion I got from a co-worker
was to get the ant file to create a
file on the classpath and to package
that into the JAR and have it read by
the method. ... To my mind that's a
hack and could be circumvented/broken
by someone having a similarly named
file outside the JAR, but on the
classpath.
I'm not sure that getting Ant to generate a file is a terribly egregious hack, if it's a hack at all. Why not generate a properties file and use java.util.Properties to handle it?

Load methods and classes from build bath in Java

I am using Eclipse and I have got two libraries included in my project, foo.jar and bar.jar. In both JARs there is a class FooBar.java that includes the method getFoobar(Object xy).
Now I would like to load the method getFoobar(Object xy) either from foo.jar or from bar.jar on the basis of a properties file:
config.properties:
choice=foo
If choice==foo then the method of Foo.jar shall be picked, elsewise the method getFoobar(Object xy) from Bar.java. To make things more complicated the method getFoobar(Object xy) has in its method declaration objects loaded from another JAR which is included in foo.jar (and bar.jar respectively).
So my question is. How can I get the methods of the JARs respectively by Reflections? I have not yet found a solution. Is there a way to solve this issue?
Thank you.
Emrah
You can only load one or the other methods without getting complicated with class loaders. A simple workaround is to rename the package of one or both libraries with jarjar This allows you to have everything in foo.jar start with foo. and everything is bar.jar start with bar. and this avoids any confusion. I have seen this used to be able to load several version of Xerces based on configuration (and use them concurrently in the same app)
Write your ClassLoader that reads the property. Alternatively, you can use -D option in the jvm arguments
-Dchoice=foo
and in the code that loads the class from foo.jar or from bar.jar you can switch on this property value:
String choice = System.getProperty("choice");
if (Main.CHOICE_FOO.equalsIgnoreCase(choice)) {...}
...
OSGI can give you a similar capability.
How can I get the methods of the JARs respectively by Reflections?
You can't.
Reflection does not allow you to select between the two versions of the class. In fact, as far as the JVM is concerned, there is only one version; i.e. the one that appears earliest on the classpath.
You can solve this problem by defining multiple classloaders, each with a different classpath. However, there are complications:
If you manage to load both versions of the class into a running application, you will find that instances of the respective classes have different types, and you won't be able to convince the JVM otherwise.
When your application loads another class that statically depends on one of these classes, it will bind to the version of the class that is on the classpath of the dependent classes classloader. And you can't change that. So, uses of the class name in declarations / typecasts / etc in the dependent class will refer to the version of the class found by the dependent classes classloader, not the other one.
The upshot is that you can't use these same-named classes like regular classes ... especially if both versions need to be loaded in the same JVM. It is a better idea to give the two versions of the class different names. You don't gain anything by making the class names the same.

how to avoid "duplicate class" in Java

Suppose I have have a java project myProject and am using an external library jar (someJar.jar), which has a class com.somepackage.Class1.class.
Now I find an updated version of Class1.java which fixes a bug in the original jar.
I include the new Class1.java in my source code under package com.somepackage
When I build the project (e.g., using Netbeans), there is a dist\myProject.jar which contains the classcom.somepackage.Class1.class and a dist\lib\someJar.jar which also contains a class with the same name.
When I run the file (e.g, using java -jar dist\myProject.jar), the new version of Class1.class is used (as I want).
How does Java decide which class file to run in case of such duplicates? Is there any way I can specify precedence ?
Is there any 'right' way to avoid such clashes?
In Proguard, when I try to compress my code, I get a duplicate class error. How do I eliminate this?
Java decides which one to use based on the order of the classpath. List yours first and you'll be fine.
The "right" way would be to fix the orignal source, but sometimes that's not always an option.
I haven't used ProGuard, but I have re-jarred libaries before that had duplicate classes. The solution in my case was to tell Ant to ignore duplicate classes. I would assume ProGuard would have that support too.
Can you not create an updated jar file which contains the bug fix? It's going to make things a lot simpler if you don't have two versions of the same fully-qualified class around.
1) Updated Jar is a better solution.
2) Use a different class name. Is there a reason, why you want to use the same class name and same packing? I don't think there is a reason.
3) create a wrapper/ proxy class, that encapsulate all the calls to the jar and you can decide to call this new class that fixes the bug ( provided it has a different name and packaging)

Is there any way to define a constant value to Java at compile time

When I used to write libraries in C/C++ I got into the habit of having a method to return the compile date/time. This was always a compiled into the library so would differentiate builds of the library. I got this by returning a #define in the code:
C++:
#ifdef _BuildDateTime_
char* SomeClass::getBuildDateTime() {
return _BuildDateTime_;
}
#else
char* SomeClass::getBuildDateTime() {
return "Undefined";
}
#endif
Then on the compile I had a '-D_BuildDateTime_=Date' in the build script.
Is there any way to achieve this or similar in Java without needing to remember to edit any files manually or distributing any seperate files.
One suggestion I got from a co-worker was to get the ant file to create a file on the classpath and to package that into the JAR and have it read by the method.
Something like (assuming the file created was called 'DateTime.dat'):
// I know Exceptions and proper open/closing
// of the file are not done. This is just
// to explain the point!
String getBuildDateTime() {
return new BufferedReader(getClass()
.getResourceAsStream("DateTime.dat")).readLine();
}
To my mind that's a hack and could be circumvented/broken by someone having a similarly named file outside the JAR, but on the classpath.
Anyway, my question is whether there is any way to inject a constant into a class at compile time
EDIT
The reason I consider using an externally generated file in the JAR a hack is because this is) a library and will be embedded in client apps. These client apps may define their own classloaders meaning I can't rely on the standard JVM class loading rules.
My personal preference would be to go with using the date from the JAR file as suggested by serg10.
I would favour the standards based approach. Put your version information (along with other useful publisher stuff such as build number, subversion revision number, author, company details, etc) in the jar's Manifest File.
This is a well documented and understood Java specification. Strong tool support exists for creating manifest files (a core Ant task for example, or the maven jar plugin). These can help with setting some of the attributes automatically - I have maven configured to put the jar's maven version number, Subversion revision and timestamp into the manifest for me at build time.
You can read the contents of the manifest at runtime with standard java api calls - something like:
import java.util.jar.*;
...
JarFile myJar = new JarFile("nameOfJar.jar"); // various constructors available
Manifest manifest = myJar.getManifest();
Map<String,Attributes> manifestContents = manifest.getAttributes();
To me, that feels like a more Java standard approach, so will probably prove more easy for subsequent code maintainers to follow.
I remember seeing something similar in an open source project:
class Version... {
public static String tstamp() {
return "#BUILDTIME#";
}
}
in a template file. With Ant's filtering copy you can give this macro a value:
<copy src="templatefile" dst="Version.java" filtering="true">
<filter token="BUILDTIME" value="${build.tstamp}" />
</copy>
use this to create a Version.java source file in your build process, before the compilation step.
AFAIK there is not a way to do this with javac. This can easily be done with Ant -- I would create a first class object called BuildTimestamp.java and generate that file at compile time via an Ant target.
Here's an Ant type that will be helpful.
Unless you want to run your Java source through a C/C++ Preprocessor (which is a BIG NO-NO), use the jar method. There are other ways to get the correct resources out of a jar to make sure someone didn't put a duplicate resource on the classpath. You could also consider using the Jar manifest for this. My project does exactly what you're trying to do (with build dates, revisions, author, etc) using the manifest.
You'll want to use this:
Enumeration<URL> resources = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResources("META-INF/MANIFEST.MF");
This will get you ALL of the manifests on the classpath. You can figure out which jar they can from by parsing the URL.
Personally I'd go for a separate properties file in your jar that you'd load at runtime... The classloader has a defined order for searching for files - I can't remember how it works exactly off hand, but I don't think another file with the same name somewhere on the classpath would be likely to cause issues.
But another way you could do it would be to use Ant to copy your .java files into a different directory before compiling them, filtering in String constants as appropriate. You could use something like:
public String getBuildDateTime() {
return "#BUILD_DATE_TIME#";
}
and write a filter in your Ant file to replace that with a build property.
Perhaps a more Java-style way of indicating your library's version would be to add a version number to the JAR's manifest, as described in the manifest documentation.
One suggestion I got from a co-worker
was to get the ant file to create a
file on the classpath and to package
that into the JAR and have it read by
the method. ... To my mind that's a
hack and could be circumvented/broken
by someone having a similarly named
file outside the JAR, but on the
classpath.
I'm not sure that getting Ant to generate a file is a terribly egregious hack, if it's a hack at all. Why not generate a properties file and use java.util.Properties to handle it?

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