Creating a jar file from a Scala file

Question

I'm new to Scala and don't know Java. I want to create a jar file out of a simple Scala file. So I have my HelloWorld.scala, generate a HelloWorld.jar.

Manifest.mf:

Main-Class: HelloWorld

In the console I run:

fsc HelloWorld.scala
jar -cvfm HelloWorld.jar Manifest.mf HelloWorld\$.class HelloWorld.class
java -jar HelloWorld.jar 
  => "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: HelloWorld/jar"

java -cp HelloWorld.jar HelloWorld 
  => Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: scala/ScalaObject
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:675)
    at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:124)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:260)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:56)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:195)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:316)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:280)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:251)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:374)
    at hoppity.main(HelloWorld.scala)

Answer 1

I ended up using sbt assembly, it is really simple to use. I added a file called assembly.sbt into the project/ directory at the root of the project with a one liner (Note your version might need to be changed).

addSbtPlugin("com.eed3si9n" % "sbt-assembly" % "0.11.2")

Then just run the assembly task in sbt:

> assembly

Or just 'sbt assembly' in project root directory

$ sbt assembly

It will first run your tests and then it will generate the new jar into the target/ directory (given that my build.sbt already lists all my dependencies).

In my case, I just make that .jar file executable, rename to remove the extension and it is ready to ship!

Also, if you are doing a command line tool, don't forget to add a man page (I hate scripts without proper manpages or with multi-page plain text documentation that is not even piped into a pager for you).

Answer 2

If you do not wish to use sbt facilities I recommend the use of a makefile.

Here is an example where foo package is replaced by foo.bar.myApp for completeness.

makefile

NAME=HelloWorld
JARNAME=helloworld

PACKAGE=foo.bar.myApp
PATHPACK=$(subst .,/,$(PACKAGE))

.DUMMY: default
default: $(NAME)

.DUMMY: help
help:
    @echo "make [$(NAME)]"
    @echo "make [jar|runJar]"
    @echo "make [clean|distClean|cleanAllJars|cleanScalaJar|cleanAppJar]"

.PRECIOUS: bin/$(PATHPACK)/%.class

bin/$(PATHPACK)/%.class: src/$(PATHPACK)/%.scala
    scalac -sourcepath src -d bin $<

scala-library.jar:
    cp $(SCALA_HOME)/lib/scala-library.jar .

.DUMMY: runjar
runJar: jar
    java -jar $(JARNAME).jar

.DUMMY: jar
jar: $(JARNAME).jar

MANIFEST.MF:
    @echo "Main-Class: $(PACKAGE).$(NAME)" > $@
    @echo "Class-Path: scala-library.jar" >> $@

$(JARNAME).jar: scala-library.jar bin/$(PATHPACK)/$(NAME).class \
                                MANIFEST.MF
    (cd bin && jar -cfm ../$(JARNAME).jar ../MANIFEST.MF *)

%: bin/$(PATHPACK)/%.class
    scala -cp bin $(PACKAGE).$@

.DUMMY: clean
clean:
    rm -R -f bin/* MANIFEST.MF

cleanAppJar:
    rm -f $(JARNAME).jar

cleanScalaJar:
    rm -f scala-library.jar

cleanAllJars: cleanAppJar cleanScalaJar

distClean cleanDist: clean cleanAllJars

Answer 3

I don't want to write why's and how's rather just show the solution which worked in my case (via Linux Ubuntu command line):

1)

mkdir scala-jar-example
cd scala-jar-example

2)

nano Hello.scala
object Hello extends App   {  println("Hello, world")   }

3)

nano build.sbt
import AssemblyKeys._

assemblySettings

name := "MyProject"

version := "1.0"

scalaVersion := "2.11.0"

3)

mkdir project
cd project 
nano plugins.sbt
addSbtPlugin("com.eed3si9n" % "sbt-assembly" % "0.9.1")

4)

cd ../   
sbt assembly

5)

java -jar target/target/scala-2.11/MyProject-assembly-1.0.jar
>> Hello, world

Answer 4

I tried to reproduce MyDowell's method. Finally I could make it work. However I find that the answer though correct a bit too complicated for a novice ( in particular the directory structure is unnecessarily complicated ).

I can reproduce this result with very simplistic means. To start with there is only one directory which contains three files:

helloworld.scala
MANIFEST.MF
scala-library.jar

helloworld.scala

object HelloWorld
{
  def main(args: Array[String])
  {
    println("Hello, world!")
  }
}

MANIFEST.MF:

Main-Class: HelloWorld
Class-Path: scala-library.jar

first compile helloworld.scala:

scalac helloworld.scala

then create the jar:

\progra~1\java\jdk18~1.0_4\bin\jar -cfm helloworld.jar MANIFEST.MF .

now you can run it with:

java -jar helloworld.jar

I found this simple solution because the original one did not work. Later I found out that not because it is wrong, but because of a trivial error: if I don't close the second line in MANIFEST.MF with a newline, then this line will be ignored. This took me an hour to find out and I tried all other things before, in the process finding this very simple solution.

Answer 5

One thing which may cause a similar problem (although it's not the problem in the initial question above) is that the Java vm seems to demand that the main method returns void. In Scala we can write something like (observe the =-sign in the definition of main):

object MainProgram {

  def main(args: Array[String]) = {
    new GUI(args)
  }
}

where main actually returns a GUI-object (i.e. it's not void), but the program will run nicely when we start it using the scala command.

If we package this code into a jar-file, with MainProgram as the Main-Class, the Java vm will complain that there's no main function, since the return type of our main is not void (I find this complaint somewhat strange, since the return type is not part of the signature).

We would have no problems if we left out the =-sign in the header of main, or if we explicitly declared it as Unit.

Answer 6

I modified the bash script adding some intelligence including auto-manifest generation.

This script assumes that the main object is named the same as the file it is in (case sensitive). Also, either the current directory name must equal to the main object name or the main object name should be provided as a command line parameter. Launch this script from the root directory of your project. Modify the variables at the top as required.

Be aware that the script will generate the bin and dist folders and will ERASE any existing contents in bin.

#!/bin/bash

SC_DIST_PATH=dist
SC_SRC_PATH=src
SC_BIN_PATH=bin
SC_INCLUDE_LIB_JAR=scala-library.jar
SC_MANIFEST_PATH=MANIFEST.MF
SC_STARTING_PATH=$(pwd)

if [[ ! $SCALA_HOME ]] ; then
    echo "ERROR: set a SCALA_HOME environment variable"
    exit 1
fi

if [[ ! -f $SCALA_HOME/lib/$SC_INCLUDE_LIB_JAR ]] ; then
    echo "ERROR: Cannot find Scala Libraries!"
    exit 1
fi

if [[ -z "$1" ]] ; then
    SC_APP=$(basename $SC_STARTING_PATH)
else
    SC_APP=$1
fi

[[ ! -d $SC_DIST_PATH ]] && mkdir $SC_DIST_PATH

if [[ ! -d $SC_BIN_PATH ]] ; then
    mkdir "$SC_BIN_PATH"
else
    rm -r "$SC_BIN_PATH"
    if [[ -d $SC_BIN_PATH ]] ; then
        echo "ERROR:  Cannot remove temp compile directory:  $SC_BIN_PATH"
        exit 1
    fi
    mkdir "$SC_BIN_PATH"
fi

if [[ ! -d $SC_SRC_PATH ]] || [[ ! -d $SC_DIST_PATH ]] || [[ ! -d $SC_BIN_PATH ]] ; then
    echo "ERROR: Directory not found!:  $SC_SRC_PATH or $SC_DIST_PATH or $SC_BIN_PATH"
    exit 1
fi

if [[ ! -f $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_INCLUDE_LIB_JAR ]] ; then
    cp "$SCALA_HOME/lib/$SC_INCLUDE_LIB_JAR" "$SC_DIST_PATH"
fi

SCALA_MAIN=$(find ./$SC_SRC_PATH -name "$SC_APP.scala")
COMPILE_STATUS=$?
SCALA_MAIN_COUNT=$(echo "$SCALA_MAIN" | wc -l)

if [[ $SCALA_MAIN_COUNT != "1" ]] || [[ ! $COMPILE_STATUS == 0 ]] ; then
    echo "Main source file not found or too many exist!:  $SC_APP.scala"
    exit 1
fi

if [[ -f $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar ]] ; then
    rm "$SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar"  
    if [[ -f $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar ]] ; then
        echo "Unable to remove existing distribution!:  $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar"
        exit 1
    fi
fi

if [[ ! -f $SC_MANIFEST_PATH ]] ; then
    LEN_BASE=$(echo $(( $(echo "./$SC_SRC_PATH" |wc -c) - 0 )))
    SC_MAIN_CLASS=$(echo $SCALA_MAIN |cut --complement -c1-$LEN_BASE)
    SC_MAIN_CLASS=${SC_MAIN_CLASS%%.*}
    SC_MAIN_CLASS=$(echo $SC_MAIN_CLASS |awk '{gsub( "/", "'"."'"); print}')

    echo $(echo "Main-Class: "$SC_MAIN_CLASS) > $SC_MANIFEST_PATH
    echo $(echo "Class-Path: "$SC_INCLUDE_LIB_JAR) >> $SC_MANIFEST_PATH
fi

scalac -sourcepath $SC_SRC_PATH -d $SC_BIN_PATH $SCALA_MAIN
COMPILE_STATUS=$?

if [[ $COMPILE_STATUS != "0" ]] ; then
    echo "Compile Failed!"
    exit 1
fi

cd "$SC_BIN_PATH"
jar -cfm ../$SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar ../$SC_MANIFEST_PATH *
COMPILE_STATUS=$?
cd "$SC_STARTING_PATH"

if  [[ $COMPILE_STATUS != "0" ]] || [[ ! -f $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar ]] ; then
    echo "JAR Build Failed!"
    exit 1
fi

echo " "
echo "BUILD COMPLETE!... TO LAUNCH:  java -jar $SC_DIST_PATH/$SC_APP.jar"
echo " "

Answer 7

You can also use maven and the maven-scala-plugin. Once you set up maven, you can just do mvn package and it will create your jar for you.

Answer 8

Sample directory structure:

X:\scala\bin
X:\scala\build.bat
X:\scala\MANIFEST.MF
X:\scala\src
X:\scala\src\foo
X:\scala\src\foo\HelloWorld.scala

HelloWorld.scala:

//file: foo/HelloWorld.scala
package foo {
  object HelloWorld {
    def main(args: Array[String]) {
      println("Hello, world!")
    }
  }
}

MANIFEST.MF:

Main-Class: foo.HelloWorld
Class-Path: scala-library.jar

build.bat:

@ECHO OFF

IF EXIST hellow.jar DEL hellow.jar
IF NOT EXIST scala-library.jar COPY %SCALA_HOME%\lib\scala-library.jar .

CALL scalac -sourcepath src -d bin src\foo\HelloWorld.scala

CD bin
jar -cfm ..\hellow.jar ..\MANIFEST.MF *.*
CD ..

java -jar hellow.jar

---

In order to successfully use the -jar switch, you need two entries in the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file: the main class; relative URLs to any dependencies. The documentation notes:

-jar

Execute a program encapsulated in a JAR file. The first argument is the name of a JAR file instead of a startup class name. In order for this option to work, the manifest of the JAR file must contain a line of the form Main-Class: classname. Here, classname identifies the class having the public static void main(String[] args) method that serves as your application's starting point. See the Jar tool reference page and the Jar trail of the Java Tutorial for information about working with Jar files and Jar-file manifests.

When you use this option, the JAR file is the source of all user classes, and other user class path settings are ignored.

• java command line usage
• manifest spec

(Notes: JAR files can be inspected with most ZIP applications; I probably neglect handling spaces in directory names in the batch script; Scala code runner version 2.7.4.final .)

---

For completeness, an equivalent bash script:

#!/bin/bash

if [ ! $SCALA_HOME ]
then
    echo ERROR: set a SCALA_HOME environment variable
    exit
fi

if [ ! -f scala-library.jar ]
then
    cp $SCALA_HOME/lib/scala-library.jar .
fi

scalac -sourcepath src -d bin src/foo/HelloWorld.scala

cd bin
jar -cfm ../hellow.jar ../MANIFEST.MF *
cd ..

java -jar hellow.jar

Answer 9

Because Scala scripts require the Scala libraries to be installed, you will have to include the Scala runtime along with your JAR.

There are many strategies for doing this, such as jar jar, but ultimately the issue you're seeing is that the Java process you've started can't find the Scala JARs.

For a simple stand-alone script, I'd recommend using jar jar, otherwise you should start looking at a dependency management tool, or require users to install Scala in the JDK.