Tutorials on packaging a Java application

Question

What are some tutorials and best practices that show to make a build from source code for a Java desktop / JEE web application?

I want to learn what needs to be packaged as a WAR/JAR from source and how it must be structured?

Answer 1

Here are a few links to get started:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAR_(Sun_file_format)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAR_(file_format)

See the external links section for more detailed information.

EDIT: Sorry the links are broken you need to add the closing ')' at the end.

Answer 2

• JAR: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/deployment/jar/signindex.html
• WAR: http://java.sun.com/j2ee/tutorial/1_3-fcs/doc/WCC3.html

Answer 3

If you're using Maven:

• maven war plugin
• jars are created simply by issuing mvn package

If you're not using Maven at this point - you should seriously consider it. It will relieve you of a lot of build, packaging and dependency management task.