find-a-jar-file-given-the-class-name

Save this as findclass.sh (or whatever), put it on your path and make it executable:

#!/bin/sh
find "$1" -name "*.jar" -exec sh -c 'jar -tf {}|grep -H --label {} '$2'' ;

The first parameter is the directory to search recursively and the second parameter is a regular expression (typically just a simple class name) to search for.

$ findclass.sh . WSSubject

The script relies on the -t option to the jar command (which lists the contents) and greps each table of contents, labelling any matches with the path of the JAR file in which it was found.

I have written a program for this: https://github.com/javalite/jar-explorer It will also decompile existing byte code to show you interfaces, methods, super classes, will show contents of other resources - text, images, html, etc.

There is no "official" Java way to do this AFAIK.

The way I usually hunt for it is to use find and jar to look through all jar files in a given tree.

> find . -name *.jar -print -exec jar tf {} oracle/sql/BLOB.class ;
./v2.6.1/lib/csw_library.jar
./v2.6.1/lib/oracle_drivers_12_01.jar
oracle/sql/BLOB.class

If you're on Windows and don't want to install Cygwin, then I suppose you would have to write a batch script to locate the jar files.

If the grep on your system (e.g. Solaris) doesn't have -H and --label as used in Dan Dyer's example, you can use:

find . -name '*.jar' -type f | xargs -i bash -c "jar -tvf {}| tr / . | grep WSSubject && echo {}"

$ find . -iname *.jar | while read JARF; do jar tvf $JARF | grep Log.class && echo $JARF ; done
479 Fri Oct 10 18:19:40 PDT 2003 org/apache/commons/logging/Log.class
3714 Fri Oct 10 18:19:40 PDT 2003 org/apache/commons/logging/impl/Log4JCategoryLog.class
1963 Fri Oct 10 18:19:40 PDT 2003 org/apache/commons/logging/impl/NoOpLog.class
9065 Fri Oct 10 18:19:40 PDT 2003 org/apache/commons/logging/impl/SimpleLog.class
./WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging.jar

In Windows, run cmd.exe and type:

  for %i in (*.jar) do @jar tvf %i | find "/com/company/MyClass.class"

The jars would have to be in the current directory. For also has a /R option which takes a directory and lets you search recursively.

If Jar.exe isn't in your path, you can do something like @C:jdkinjar.exe.

You could try services like:

• http://www.jarhoo.com/
• http://www.docjar.com/
• http://javacio.us/
• http://merobase.com/

Or

• Google Desktop with the Airbear Software's IndexZip Plug-in

Or

• A maven enterprise repository with a search feature e.g. Nexus (OFC, this would only work if the jars you're looking for are indexed i.e. installed in the repository)

Printing the list as I go so I can see what I'm checking. Mostly I'm looking in a lib/app directory, but you can substitute a locate for the find.

e.g.

for jar in $(find some_dir/lib -name "*.jar" ); 
do
echo -------------$jar-------------------
jar -tf $jar | grep TheNameOfTheClassImLookingFor
done

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1500141/find-a-jar-file-given-the-class-name