This is for Kotlin DSL (build.gradle.kts).
Method 1 (no need for application or other plugins)
tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" // OR another notation // manifest { // attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" // } }
If you use any external libraries, use below code. Copy library JARs in libs sub-directory of where you put your result JAR. Make sure your library JAR files do not contain space in their file name.
tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" manifest.attributes["Class-Path"] = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .joinToString(separator = " ") { file -> "libs/${file.name}" } }
Note that Java requires us to use relative URLs for the Class-Path attribute. So, we cannot use the absolute path of Gradle dependencies (which is also prone to being changed and not available on other systems). If you want to use absolute paths, maybe this workaround will work.
Create the JAR with the following command:
./gradlew jar
The result JAR will be created in build/libs/ directory by default.
Method 2: Embedding libraries (if any) in the result JAR (fat or uber JAR)
tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" val dependencies = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .map(::zipTree) // OR .map { zipTree(it) } from(dependencies) duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE }
Creating the JAR is exactly the same as the previous method.
Method 3: Using the Shadow plugin (to create a fat or uber JAR)
plugins { id("com.github.johnrengelman.shadow") version "6.0.0" } // Shadow task depends on Jar task, so these will be reflected for Shadow as well tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "org.example.MainKt" }
Create the JAR with this command:
./gradlew shadowJar
See Shadow documentations for more information about configuring the plugin.
Running the created JAR
java -jar my-artifact.jar
The above solutions were tested with:
- Java 17
- Gradle 7.1 (which uses Kotlin 1.4.31 for .kts build scripts)
See the official Gradle documentation for creating uber (fat) JARs.
For more information about manifests, see Oracle Java Documentation: Working with Manifest files.
Note that your resource files will be included in the JAR file automatically (assuming they were placed in /src/main/resources/ directory or any custom directory set as resources root in the build file). To access a resource file in your application, use this code (note the / at the start of names):
- Kotlin
val vegetables = MyClass::class.java.getResource("/vegetables.txt").readText() // Alternative ways: // val vegetables = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt").readText() // val vegetables = MyClass::class.java.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt").reader().readText() // val vegetables = object{}.javaClass.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt").reader().readText()
- Java
var stream = MyClass.class.getResource("/vegetables.txt").openStream(); // OR var stream = MyClass.class.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt"); var reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(stream)); var vegetables = reader.lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
