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(file) not found in build path

I downloaded and decompiled a jar file for a plugin for minecraft, and I added it to eclipse by creating a new java project, Import > archive file > [decompiled jar.zip]
That results in this:
After that, I changed a single line of code, then I tryed to export it.
However, when I attempt to export it, I get this message:
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to fix this. Please help.

de (and not only its content) and the other folders as well must be included in the source folder.
Try to move all the folders (except META-INF) and files to src and then create your jar.
(Note that there would be a warning if you didn't exclude META-INF because it is generated you would override it but it wouldn't prevent generating the jar).
NOTE
I don't know what you will do later with this but you'd better use Maven, Gradle (or even Ant) to manage you future jar builds.

Export to JAR with external JavaPOS Files

I've currently finished my project, but can't get it to work when it is exported. I use JAXB to read and write XML Files and also have dependencies on other external Folders, which are needed to use a POS-Printer.
I've managed to link my external XML Save-Files with absolute paths, but not with relative paths. So that worked, although not the way i wanted. Yet, using the external class folder for the printer didn't work at all.
This means, that in my Eclipse Project Build Path i've added a class folder, which contains all of these needed files (which are not only jars, so adding them one by one wouldnt work). So exporting my project to a jar either includes all the files into the jar itself, or doesnt include them at all.
Everything works perfectly in Eclipse, but not when i export it.
My folder structure looks like this:
src
/model
/view
/control
data
/articles.xml
/...
JavaPOS <--- needed folder with all its files
/jpos.xml
/xerxers.jar
/swt-..-.dll
I've tried:
InputStreams is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(url);
absolute paths
manipulating the manifest file and/or jar structure
runnable and non runnable jars with nearly every combination of options
putting the files inside the library "by hand"
changing the build path of the project
My Question is:
How do i get my jar-file to know where these files are?
EDIT:
Do you think Maven or an Ant file could solve my problems? I don't have any experience with those.

The Problem was, that i had more than one JRE installed and that the one eclipse was using, had all the dll files, but the other ones didnt have it. So i had to add them manually, because reinstalling the drivers of the printer didnt change anything. Gotta fix that somehow, but right now it works and that is all i wanted.
Turns out i didn't even need that Folder, just needed one file out of it and the missing dlls.

Which jar file is used during compilation?

Let's assume I have two jar files on classpath when building my project - myJarFile.jar and myJarFileOld.jar. They contain the same packages and the same classes, but the myJarFileOld.jar contains old implementation, which causes that the compilation fails. I'm not asking for solution of this error, I know that I should remove myJarFileOld.jar to make compilation work. However I'd like to know, what mechanism decides which class from which jar file is used during compilation, when both jar files are present?

When a class needs to be loaded, all jar files in the classpath, in order, are scanned. As soon as the class is found, it's loaded.

Not fully sure, but I believe the order of classpath appearance is deciding. If it's found in first jar, then it's not search in another. However I'm pretty sure that class loader will load both jars at the beginning, and you will get some errors about duplicate code. However I'm not sure this, this is probably related to runtime environment.

you have this feature in Eclipse where you can specify the ordering of the jars that you want to be executed from the project classpath.Go to
Project->Select Properties->Select Build Path from left pane-> go to Order and Export Tab->Select Top or Bottom button-> click ok.
The next time you build your project the jar from the classpath will be picked in the order that you have specified.

The simplest way to create jar file?

I have a java project and i need to create jar file from my project . any body can tell me what is the simplest way to make this?

The basic format of the command for creating a JAR file is:
jar cf jar-file input-file(s)
The options and arguments used in this command are:
The c option indicates that you want to create a JAR file.
The f option indicates that you want the output to go to a file
rather than to stdout.
jar-file is the name that you want the resulting JAR file to have.
You can use any filename for a JAR file. By convention, JAR filenames
are given a .jar extension, though this is not required.
The input-file(s) argument is a space-separated list of one or more
files that you want to include in your JAR file. The input-file(s)
argument can contain the wildcard * symbol. If any of the
"input-files" are directories, the contents of those directories are
added to the JAR archive recursively.
The c and f options can appear in either order, but there must not be
any space between them.

From scratch.. with CMD
The command line is what almost every other application will use to build your JAR file. They just wrap it up a little nicer for you. In truth, it's very simple to do yourself. Obviously Java have explained this way in detail so there is no sense in me repeating it.
Note: You need to have your JDK/bin directoy appended onto your %PATH% system variable to be able to use this method.
Double Note: As pointed out in the comments, I'd suggest you keep trying this method until you understand it. It is very important that you get these things at a low level, so if something goes wrong with the IDE, you have a much better understanding of how to solve it.
Eclipse
Eclipse offers a nice interface for it. You can find a step by step tutorial here. The long and short of it is..
Right click on Project -> Export -> JAR File -> Select the Java files to include
When you've done this, hit finish and you're golden. The tutorial also adds some additional tips in to make it as seamless as possible.
IntelliJ IDEA
My personal favourite IDE. This question offers a nice explanation for how to export as a JAR file. Again, the long and short of it..
File -> Project Structure -> Artifacts
In there, you can then create a new artifact by clicking the + icon. This will give you an option for the file type, which is .JAR and which modules you want to include in your artifact. When you're done, you go to..
Build -> Build Artifacts
And it will create the JAR file from your project.
Using Maven
I've often found this to be a pretty awesome tool, and definitely one worth considering. In IntelliJ, by double clicking the install procedure in the life cycles..
This will create a new JAR file in your .target directory.
Note: Some IDEs (like IntelliJ) will hide the .target directory by default. Make sure you make it visible in the project settings.

A JAR file is nothing but a ZIP file with added meta-information for the Java Runtime Environment. So the easiest way is to actually zip your classes files including that META-INF folder by hand, then rename the file to JAR. How you get your classes files however is a different story.
The easiest practical way is to hit the build button in your IDE, which will then compile your code into class files, create an appropriate set of meta information and then conveniently zips the whole thing into a JAR file.

Asking for a maven solution, you would need to specify a single pom.xml in your project
<project>
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>you.specify.something.preferably.a.domain.name</groupId>
<artifactId>name-of-project</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
</project>
And with this you can do a
mvn package
To build the project. However, it relies on a lot of defaults, you would probably want to differ.

To build a jar file from a module
On the main menu, choose Build | Build Artifact.
From the drop-down list, select the desired artifact of the type JAR.
see this

Classpath including JAR within a JAR

Is it possible to specify a Java classpath that includes a JAR file contained within another JAR file?

If you're trying to create a single jar that contains your application and its required libraries, there are two ways (that I know of) to do that. The first is One-Jar, which uses a special classloader to allow the nesting of jars. The second is UberJar, (or Shade), which explodes the included libraries and puts all the classes in the top-level jar.
I should also mention that UberJar and Shade are plugins for Maven1 and Maven2 respectively. As mentioned below, you can also use the assembly plugin (which in reality is much more powerful, but much harder to properly configure).

You do NOT want to use those "explode JAR contents" solutions. They definitely make it harder to see stuff (since everything is exploded at the same level). Furthermore, there could be naming conflicts (should not happen if people use proper packages, but you cannot always control this).
The feature that you want is one of the top 25 Sun RFEs: RFE 4648386, which Sun, in their infinite wisdom, has designated as being of low priority. We can only hope that Sun wakes up...
In the meanwhile, the best solution that I have come across (which I wish that Sun would copy in the JDK) is to use the custom class loader JarClassLoader.

After some research I have found method that doesn't require maven or any 3rd party extension/program.
You can use "Class-Path" in your manifest file.
For example:
Create manifest file MANIFEST.MF
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Created-By: Bundle
Class-Path: ./custom_lib.jar
Main-Class: YourMainClass
Compile all your classes and run jar cfm Testing.jar MANIFEST.MF *.class custom_lib.jar
c stands for create archive
f indicates that you want to specify file
v is for verbose input
m means that we will pass custom manifest file
Be sure that you included lib in jar package. You should be able to run jar in the normal way.
based on: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-5things6/
all other information you need about the class-path do you find here

Use the zipgroupfileset tag (uses same attributes as a fileset tag); it will unzip all files in the directory and add to your new archive file.
More information: http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/zip.html
This is a very useful way to get around the jar-in-a-jar problem -- I know because I have googled this exact StackOverflow question while trying to figure out what to do. If you want to package a jar or a folder of jars into your one built jar with Ant, then forget about all this classpath or third-party plugin stuff, all you gotta do is this (in Ant):
<jar destfile="your.jar" basedir="java/dir">
...
<zipgroupfileset dir="dir/of/jars" />
</jar>

If you are building with ant (I am using ant from eclipse), you can just add the extra jar files
by saying to ant to add them...
Not necessarily the best method if you have a project maintained by multiple people but it works for one person project and is easy.
for example my target that was building the .jar file was:
<jar destfile="${plugin.jar}" basedir="${plugin.build.dir}">
<manifest>
<attribute name="Author" value="ntg"/>
................................
<attribute name="Plugin-Version" value="${version.entry.commit.revision}"/>
</manifest>
</jar>
I just added one line to make it:
<jar ....">
<zipgroupfileset dir="${external-lib-dir}" includes="*.jar"/>
<manifest>
................................
</manifest>
</jar>
where
<property name="external-lib-dir"
value="C:\...\eclipseWorkspace\Filter\external\...\lib" />
was the dir with the external jars.
And that's it...

Not without writing your own class loader. You can add jars to the jar's classpath, but they must be co-located, not contained in the main jar.

You need to build a custom class-loader to do this or a third-party library that supports this. Your best bet is to extract the jar from the runtime and add them to the classpath (or have them already added to the classpath).

I use maven for my java builds which has a plugin called the maven assembly plugin.
It does what your asking, but like some of the other suggestions describe - essentially exploding all the dependent jars and recombining them into a single jar

If you have eclpise IDE, you just need to export your JAR and choose "Package Required libraries into generated JAR". eclipse will automatically add the required dependant JARs into the generated JAR as well as generated some eclipse custom class loader that load these JARs automatically.

I was about to advise to extract all the files at the same level, then to make a jar out of the result, since the package system should keep them neatly separated.
That would be the manual way, I suppose the tools indicated by Steve will do that nicely.

Winstone is pretty good http://blog.jayway.com/2008/11/28/executable-war-with-winstone-maven-plugin/. But not for complex sites. And that's a shame because all it takes is to include the plugin.

Well, there is a very easy way if you're using Eclipse.
Export your project as a "Runnable" Jar file (right-click project folder from within Eclipse, select "Export..."). When you configure the export settings, be sure to select "Extract required libraries into generated Jar." Keep in mind, select "Extract..." and not "Package required libraries...".
Additionally: You must select a run-configuration in your export settings. So, you could always create an empty main( ) in some class and use it for your run configuration.
Anyway, it isn't guaranteed to work 100% of the time - as you will notice a pop-up message telling you to make sure you check the licenses of the Jar files you're including and something about not copying signature files. However, I have been doing this for years and have never encountered a problem.

Extracting into an Uber-dir works for me as we s should all be using root:\java and have outlets code in packages with versioning. Ie ca.tecreations-1.0.0. Signing is okay because the jars are intact from their downloaded location. 3rd party signatures intact, extract to c:\java. There’s my project dir. run from launcher so java -cp c:\java Launcher

In case you are using Spring Boot, you may want to have a look at this documentation: The Executable Jar Format
Java does not provide any standard way to load nested jar files (that
is, jar files that are themselves contained within a jar). This can be
problematic if you need to distribute a self-contained application
that can be run from the command line without unpacking.
To solve this problem, many developers use “shaded” jars. A shaded jar
packages all classes, from all jars, into a single “uber jar”. The
problem with shaded jars is that it becomes hard to see which
libraries are actually in your application. It can also be problematic
if the same filename is used (but with different content) in multiple
jars. Spring Boot takes a different approach and lets you actually
nest jars directly.
The Spring documentation also lists some alternative single Jar solutions:
Apache Maven Shade Plugin
JDotSoft JarClassLoader
One-JAR
Shadow Plugin (Gradle)

I would advise to use one jar and many libraries in separate jars, not in a single jar. Use separate jar from jar libraries.
Suppose you have such a folder structure:
path/yourApp/yourApp.jar
path/yourApp/lib/lib1.jar
path/yourApp/lib/megalib1.jar
path/yourApp/lib/supermegalib1.jar
All you have to do, add in MANIFEST.MF each of used jar.
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Main-Class: com.company.MyProgram
Class-Path: ./lib/lib1.jar ./lib/megalib1.jar ./lib/supermegalib1.jar
From within the manifest, you grant usage to each library.
Single all in one jar file might be easier to share and distribute, but in fact this doesn't give significant advantages over distributing as an archive and unpack it in some folder where you want to deploy. This will not make your program easier to maintain, faster. It will not make significant hdd usage difference.