Difference between jar and war in Java

java jar war
helpermethod picture helpermethod · May 3, 2011 · Viewed 340.2k times · Source

What is the difference between a .jar and a .war file?
Is it only the file extension or is there something more?

Answer

aioobe picture aioobe · May 3, 2011

From Java Tips: Difference between ear jar and war files:

These files are simply zipped files using the java jar tool. These files are created for different purposes. Here is the description of these files:

  • .jar files: The .jar files contain libraries, resources and accessories files like property files.

  • .war files: The war file contains the web application that can be deployed on any servlet/jsp container. The .war file contains jsp, html, javascript and other files necessary for the development of web applications.

Official Sun/Oracle descriptions:

Wikipedia articles:

Related questions

How to extract .war files in java? ZIP vs JAR

I have a web program where I want the user to be able to import a .war file and I can extract certain files out of the .war file. I have found two class libraries: java.util.zip.* and java.…

Read More
How do I run a class in a WAR from the command line?

I have a Java class which has a main and I used to run as a standalone app from the command line e.g. java -jar myjar.jar params I needed to repackage the code to run under apache and …

Read More
How to include dependencies in WAR file?

I have a Dynamic Web Project in Eclipse which has a dependency to another Java project in my workspace. When running the web project in the build-in Tomcat server, I've added the project dependency to the class path in the …

Read More