Adding 3rd party jars to WEB-INF/lib automatically using Eclipse/Tomcat

Question

I have a dynamic-web project set up on Eclipse and I'm using Tomcat 7 as my web server. It doesn't seem to be automatically putting 3rd party JARs I add to my library on my build path into the WEB-INF/lib folder. Is there a way I can do this automatically? Every time I search for an answer to this, I find something like this.

So how do I do that automatically? Is there a way to configure my build path to do this?

Answer 1

Here are the instructions for Helios. For earlier releases, see SeanA's answer.

1. Project Properties -> Deployment Assembly
2. Add -> Java Build Path Entries
3. You should now see the list of libraries on your build path that you can specify for inclusion into your finished WAR.
4. Select the ones you want and hit Finish.

Answer 2

You can use "Ant" to copy files to WEB-INF/lib when you deploy files. Using Ant you will be able to copy only those files which have changed.

http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/copy.html

http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.user/gettingStarted/qs-81_basics.htm