Java Web Project referencing another Java project

Question

I have a Java Project, for which I'm now creating a Web interface, using a Dynamic Web Project from Eclipse. The Web project consists of a single servlet and two JSP's. Something like this:

/JavaApplication
  /src
  /lib
  /resources
/WebApplication
  /src
    /Servlet.java
  /WebContent
    /WEB-INF
    index.jsp
    other.jsp

Now, I need to reference JavaApplication from WebApplication, in order to use its classes to process web requests. What's the best way to accomplish this ? My idea is to create a .jar of the JavaApplication, containing all the .class files, /resources, and /libs. In this way, I could include the .jar in the web application, and I could have a single .war file that contained the entire application.

What do you think? How is this problem typically solved ?

Note: I don't want to convert the Java Project into a Web project.

Answer 1

In Eclipse project properties, add the project to the Java EE Module Dependencies (Eclipse 3.5 or older)

or Deployment Assembly (Eclipse 3.6 or newer) entry in the project properties.

This way Eclipse will take care about doing the right thing to create a WAR out of this all (it will end in /WEB-INF/lib). No other configuration is necessary, even not some fiddling in Build Path.