[java] Modifying a file inside a jar

I would like to modify a file inside my jar. Is it possible to do this without extracting and re jarring, from within my application?

File i want to modify are configuration files, mostly xml based.

The reason i am interested in not un jarring is that the application is wrapped with launch4j if i unjar it i can't create the .exe file again.

Not sure if this help, but you can edit without extracting:

1. Open the jar file from vi editor
2. Select the file you want to edit from the list
3. Press enter to open the file do the changers and save it pretty simple

Check the blog post for more details http://vinurip.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-to-edit-contents-of-jar-file-on-mac.html

To expand on what dfa said, the reason is because the jar file is set up like a zip file. If you want to modify the file, you must read out all of the entries, modify the one you want to change, and then write the entries back into the jar file. I have had to do this before, and that was the only way I could find to do it.

EDIT

Note that this is using the internal to Java jar file editors, which are file streams. I am sure there is a way to do it, you could read the entire jar into memory, modify everything, then write back out to a file stream. That is what I believe utilities like 7-Zip and others are doing, as I believe the ToC of a zip header has to be defined at write time. However, I could be wrong.

As many have said, you can't change a file in a JAR without recanning the JAR. It's even worse with Launch4J, you have to rebuild the EXE once you change the JAR. So don't go this route.

It's generally bad idea to put configuration files in the JAR. Here is my suggestion. Search for your configuration file in some pre-determined locations (like home directory, \Program Files\ etc). If you find a configuration file, use it. Otherwise, use the one in the JAR as fallback. If you do this, you just need to write the configuration file in the pre-determined location and the program will pick it up.

Another benefit of this approach is that the modified configuration file doesn't get overwritten if you upgrade your software.

Java jar files are the same format as zip files - so if you have a zip file utility that would let you modify an archive, you have your foot in the door. Second problem is, if you want to recompile a class or something, you probably will just have to re-build the jar; but a text file or something (xml, for instance) should be easily enough modified.

Extract jar file for ex. with winrar and use CAVAJ:

Cavaj Java Decompiler is a graphical freeware utility that reconstructs Java source code from CLASS files.

here is video tutorial if you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByLUeem7680

This may be more work than you're looking to deal with in the short term, but I suspect in the long term it would be very beneficial for you to look into using Ant (or Maven, or even Bazel) instead of building jar's manually. That way you can just click on the ant file (if you use Eclipse) and rebuild the jar.

Alternatively, you may want to actually not have these config files in the jar at all - if you're expecting to need to replace these files regularly, or if it's supposed to be distributed to multiple parties, the config file should not be part of the jar at all.

Check out TrueZip.

It does exactly what you want (to edit files inline inside a jar file), through a virtual file system API. It also supports nested archives (jar inside a jar) as well.

The simplest way I've found to do this in Windows is with WinRAR:

1. Right-click on the file and choose "Open with WinRAR" from the context menu.
2. Navigate to the file to be edited and double-click on it to open it in the default editor.
3. After making the changes, save and exit the editor.
4. A dialogue will then appear asking if you wish to update the file in the archive - choose "Yes" and the JAR will be updated.

As long as this file isn't .class, i.e. resource file or manifest file - you can.

Yes you can, using SQLite you can read from or write to a database from within the jar file, so that you won't have to extract and then re jar it, follow my post http://shoaibinamdar.in/blog/?p=313

using the syntax "jdbc:sqlite::resource:" you would be able to read and write to a database from within the jar file

most of the answers above saying you can't do it for class file.

Even if you want to update class file you can do that also. All you need to do is that drag and drop the class file from your workspace in the jar.

In case you want to verify your changes in class file , you can do it using a decompiler like jd-gui.

You can use Vim:

vim my.jar

Vim is able to edit compressed text files, given you have unzip in your environment.