RAD doesn't recognize changed MANIFEST.MF files (Rational Application Developer)

Question

Hi All,

I am part of a team that is working on a project that is under version control in ClearCase. This project is a single EAR, and 4 WARs as part of the EAR. Since all of the WARs use the same JARs, we store them in the \lib folder of the EAR, and then for each WAR, we reference the JARs in the EAR\lib folder in each WARs MANIFEST.MF.

What usually happens is that another developer adds or removes a JAR (say changes MyJar-1.0.0 to MyJar-1.1.0) and updates all of the MANIFEST.MF files in each WAR. Then they check these changes into ClearCase.

However, after I update my view, RAD doesn't recognize the new MANIFEST.MF files that have been brought into my view. The only way to cure this is to open the properties of each WAR, go into the J2EE Module dependencies tab, uncheck a random JAR (which prompts the user to checkout the MANIFEST.MF, .classpath and .project), click Apply (which saves the manifest), and then re-check the JAR, and hit apply once again. I am then, and only then, able to do a clean without getting any errors.

I have tried everything, hijacking the manifest, doing a unreserved checkout on the manifest. Nothing, it seems like RAD is caching the manifest or something and the only way to get it recognize that the manifest has changed in through the J2EE module dependencies tab.

Can anyone help? It is critical that all of the WARs in the EAR share the same JARs. Is there some hidden setting in RAD that I don't know about or perhaps a better way to reference JARs in a central location?

Answer 1

I am not familiar with RAD, but I do store the Jar/War in ClearCase without the version number, meaning our MANIFEST.MF file does not change that often.

That being said, this IBM article references some methods to include those Jar/War files that could be worth a try to see of the MANIFEST is updated.

• either reference them through a common project not referenced on ClearCase and only there to include the Jar/War files. Your own project would include the common project in the "Dependencies" section of the "Jar Dependency Editor" setting.

(hopefully the common project would be able to update itself in a more dynamic way than your current experience with the versioned project)

• or you can try referencing those file directly, but through a linked resource variable:

and check if that work better...