How can I have Netbeans automatically copy 3rd party jars from an included class-library to my project's dist/lib directory?

Question

I have a Java Application in NetBeans 7.1 (let's call it myApp) that depends on a Java Class-Library Project [more than one, actually] where I keep some utility-classes I share among projects.

This Class-Library Project (let's call it myLib) depends on [many] third party libraries (e.g. apache-commons-younameit.jar).

I included myLib as a library, and NetBeans' Ant script pulls myLib.jar in the dist/lib directory of my myApp project; however, the jars upon which myLib depends are not pulled in together with myLib, so my project gets runtime exceptions due to the missing apache-commons-youtnameit.jar.

I would like to have both myLib.jar and apache-commons-younameit.jar automatically pulled into myApp's dist/lib folder, so that I don't have to manually check all of my libraries' dependencies and add them to my main project.

• Is there an obvious way to accomplish this through NetBeans dialogs that I'm missing?
• or is it necessary to manually tweak my build.xml? If so, could you kindly post an example? (I'm not that well up on Ant)

What I'd like to avoid is the following:

1. I need to add a new utility library, picking from my Java Class-Library Projects.
2. I lookup into that library's libraries what jars are used and write them down.
3. I go back to my main project and add those 3rd party libraries (only the ones that I haven't included already for direct use from within my main project itself).

Thank you in advance for any help, or for pointing me in the right direction.

Answer 1

I found a way to copy "dependant libraries' dependant libraries" as you said in one of the comments. Hopefully this helps.

Add the following code to your NetBean project's build.xml file, after the <import file="nbproject/build-impl.xml"/> line. You will need to fill out a proper relative path in the <fileset> tags below.

<!--Copy over any "dependant libraries' dependant libraries" -->
<target name="-post-jar">
    <echo>Copying over extra jars into PROJECTNAME</echo>
    <copy todir="./dist/lib">
        <!-- put in order from least important to most important to prevent file overwrites -->
        <fileset dir="path-to-other-nb-project/dist/lib"></fileset>
        <fileset dir="path-to-second-nb-project/dist/lib"></fileset>
    </copy>
</target>

Not the cleanest code, but it solved the problem for me. You'll need to manually update this as you add extra dependant projects to your main project.

Answer 2

This is what worked for me in Netbeans 7.3:

Right-click on your project and select Properties, then select Libraries on the right side.

Then under "Libraries Folder" click the "Browse..." button:

Then choose your lib folder, unless it is already chosen automatically by Netbeans:

Then click Next, Finish as needed and when you come back to the Properties dialog, you should have:

After that, Netbeans should both copy the lib folder into dest and, most importantly, will reference all your libraries in the MANIFEST.MF file in your main JAR.

As a test, look if there is a new CopyLibs folder in the lib folder. Inside CopyLibs there should be a org-netbeans-modules-java-j2seproject-copylibstask.jar file. Netbeans added these and this is, I presume, what drives the copying of the lib folder into dist.