thekid/rfc — Issue #108: RFC 0108: Make XAR files runnable by XPCLI
Author: thekid
Created: 2011-10-09 15:08:55+00:00
State: open

Scope of Change
====
There will be an optional means to embed information in a XAR archive so
that tools like XPCLI can directly run these classes.

Rationale
====
Deploy applications in a single file.

Functionality
====
A file called META-INF/manifest.ini will be added to the XAR archives.

Example:

```
[runnable]
main-class="remote.server.impl.ApplicationServer"

```

Security considerations
====
n/a

Speed impact
====
n/a

Dependencies
====
n/a

Related documents
====
- http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/deployment/jar/manifestindex.html
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/deployment/jar/appman.html
How Java does this.

- http://xp-framework.net/rfc/contrib/rfc0108.diff
Implementing patch

Comments
====
- friebe, Thu Jan 25 17:33:12 CET 2007
The manifest could also more information, some ideas:
[archive]
vendor="XP Team"
company=""
product="EASC server"
checksum="md5://..."

This does not need to be decided now, however. Once we have implemented
this RFC the manifests' content definition can be easily extended.

- ohinckel, Fr 26. Jan 08:11:48 CET 2007
When adding such information to archives, it should also be possible to
extract/display them easily. This could be an enhancement for the xar
utility.