I like this, a lot, if I had a +1 here I'd use it.. its simple its addresses a real need it would facilitate the production of tools to deal with the nightmare that is .jars and the classpath
Ant could check jars against dependencies, and build the jars from scratch only if need be. A new tool could be produced to manage the jar collections on a machine, (an Ant subproject?) and export the list to the classpath, only one entry for each package-name, and that the highest version. Of course that suggests there should be a fourth entry like Package-stability: alpha | beta | release so you could a) see this info, and b) decide what version should be used based on stability. d. > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Turner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 12:36 PM <snip> > So how about defining a Jakarta-wide standard subset of jar manifest > entries? Something very simple, eg: > > Package-name: xalan > Package-version: 2.2 > Package-depends: xerces, 1.4.3 > > Then write a standard Java tool that can query any conforming jar, and > print this info. The dependency information would allow the tool to > recursively trace down dependencies, and print a complete list. <snip> > Does that sound workable? Don't be distracted by talk of taxonomies and > classloaders.. those are just applications. All I'm proposing right now > is 3 standardized manifest entries, and a tool to read them. That alone, > if adopted widely, would be of great benefit in a world of proliferating > unidentifiable jars. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
