Updating .JAR's contents from code

Question

I am making a game that needs to be updated.

I have two JAR files: Update.Jar and Game.Jar Basically, I want to be able to modify Game.Jar without completely overwriting it.

I want to:

1. Open the Jar file as a Zip file from within code
2. Replace/add some resources
3. Repackage the Jar file.

Is there an easy way or classes that can do this? If not, what would be the cleanest approach to doing this?

Answer 1

A Java JAR file is a normal ZIP file. You can therefore open and modify it with code dealing with ZIPs.

Here's a snippet which works (courtesy of David):

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.zip.ZipEntry;
import java.util.zip.ZipInputStream;
import java.util.zip.ZipOutputStream;


public class JarUpdater {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        File[] contents = {new File("F:\\ResourceTest.txt"),
                           new File("F:\\ResourceTest2.bmp")};

        File jarFile = new File("F:\\RepackMe.jar");

        try {
            updateZipFile(jarFile, contents);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

    public static void updateZipFile(File zipFile,
             File[] files) throws IOException {
               // get a temp file
        File tempFile = File.createTempFile(zipFile.getName(), null);
               // delete it, otherwise you cannot rename your existing zip to it.
        tempFile.delete();

        boolean renameOk=zipFile.renameTo(tempFile);
        if (!renameOk)
        {
            throw new RuntimeException("could not rename the file "+zipFile.getAbsolutePath()+" to "+tempFile.getAbsolutePath());
        }
        byte[] buf = new byte[1024];

        ZipInputStream zin = new ZipInputStream(new FileInputStream(tempFile));
        ZipOutputStream out = new ZipOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(zipFile));

        ZipEntry entry = zin.getNextEntry();
        while (entry != null) {
            String name = entry.getName();
            boolean notInFiles = true;
            for (File f : files) {
                if (f.getName().equals(name)) {
                    notInFiles = false;
                    break;
                }
            }
            if (notInFiles) {
                // Add ZIP entry to output stream.
                out.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry(name));
                // Transfer bytes from the ZIP file to the output file
                int len;
                while ((len = zin.read(buf)) > 0) {
                    out.write(buf, 0, len);
                }
            }
            entry = zin.getNextEntry();
        }
        // Close the streams        
        zin.close();
        // Compress the files
        for (int i = 0; i < files.length; i++) {
            InputStream in = new FileInputStream(files[i]);
            // Add ZIP entry to output stream.
            out.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry(files[i].getName()));
            // Transfer bytes from the file to the ZIP file
            int len;
            while ((len = in.read(buf)) > 0) {
                out.write(buf, 0, len);
            }
            // Complete the entry
            out.closeEntry();
            in.close();
        }
        // Complete the ZIP file
        out.close();
        tempFile.delete();
    }
}

Answer 2

In Java 7, the best way is to use the built in Zip File System Provider:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/io/fsp/zipfilesystemprovider.html

i.e.

import java.util.*;
import java.net.URI;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.*;

public class ZipFSPUser {
    public static void main(String [] args) throws Throwable {
        Map<String, String> env = new HashMap<>();
        env.put("create", "true");
        // locate file system by using the syntax
        // defined in java.net.JarURLConnection
        URI uri = URI.create("jar:file:/codeSamples/zipfs/zipfstest.zip");

       try (FileSystem zipfs = FileSystems.newFileSystem(uri, env)) {
            Path externalTxtFile = Paths.get("/codeSamples/zipfs/SomeTextFile.txt");
            Path pathInZipfile = zipfs.getPath("/SomeTextFile.txt");      
            // copy a file into the zip file
            Files.copy( externalTxtFile,pathInZipfile,
                    StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING );
        }
    }
}

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