Java/Spring: Get and display the version from MANIFEST.MF

In this small post, I will expose your simple useful manners to get the version from MANIFEST.MF and display it in an web application.

1st case: loading of the META-INF file contained in a custom library

1. Create (or check the presence of) the MANIFEST.MF file in the META-INF folder of your custom library like MyLib\src\META-INF\MANIFEST.MF.
   The content of this file could be:
   view source

   print?

   1	Manifest-Version: 1.0

   2	Class-Path:

   3	Implementation-Title: MyApplication

   4	Implementation-Version: 1.2.3

   5	Implementation-Vendor: JavaBlog.fr

2. Create a class named Version with a static attribute in your library MyLib\src\main\java\com\ho\mylib\util\Version.java:
   view source

   print?

   1	public class Version {

   2	public final static String CURRENT_VERSION =  Version.class.getPackage().getImplementationVersion();

   3

   }

3. And in your web application, the JSP displaying the library version could be like:
   view source

   print?

   1	<%@ page import="com.ho.mylib.util.Version" %>

   2	<h2 class="x-panel-header"><%=Version.CURRENT_VERSION%></h2>

2nd case: loading of the META-INF file contained in a classic web application

1. Create (or check the presence of) the MANIFEST.MF file in the META-INF folder of your web application like MyApplication\WebContent\META-INF\MANIFEST.MF or MyApplication\war\META-INF\MANIFEST.MF.
   The content of this file could be:
   view source

   print?

   1	Manifest-Version: 1.0

   2	Class-Path:

   3	Implementation-Title: MyApplication

   4	Implementation-Version: 1.2.3

   5	Implementation-Vendor: JavaBlog.fr

2. And in your web application, the JSP displaying the library version could be like:
   view source

   print?

   1

   <%

   2	//Get version of application

   3	java.util.Properties prop = new java.util.Properties();

   4	prop.load(getServletContext().getResourceAsStream("/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF"));

   5	String applVersion = prop.getProperty("Implementation-Version");

   6

   %>

   7	<h2 class="x-panel-header"><%=applVersion%></h2>

3rd case: loading of the META-INF file contained in a Spring web application

1. Create (or check the presence of) the MANIFEST.MF file in the META-INF folder of your web application like MyApplication\WebContent\META-INF\MANIFEST.MF or MyApplication\war\META-INF\MANIFEST.MF.
   The content of this file could be:
   view source

   print?

   1	Manifest-Version: 1.0

   2	Class-Path:

   3	Implementation-Title: MyApplication

   4	Implementation-Version: 1.2.3

   5	Implementation-Vendor: JavaBlog.fr

2. Create a singleton class ApplicationVersion which will contain the version of application from “/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF” file:
   view source

   print?

   01	package com.ho.spring3.security.test1.util;

   02

   03	import java.util.Iterator;

   04	import java.util.Properties;

   05

   06	import javax.servlet.ServletContext;

   07

   08	import org.springframework.web.context.ServletContextAware;

   09

   10

   /**

   11	* Bean containing the version of application from "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF" file.

   12	* @author huseyin

   13

   *

   14

   */

   15	public class ApplicationVersion implements ServletContextAware{

   16

   17	// ----------------------------------- PRIVATE ATTRIBUTES

   18	private static String CURRENT_VERSION = null;

   19	private static ApplicationVersion instance = null;

   20	private static ServletContext servletContext = null;

   21

   22	// ------------------------------------- PUBLIC FUNCTIONS

   23	private ApplicationVersion(){}

   24

   25	public static synchronized String getVersion(){

   26	if(instance == null){

   27

   try {

   28	instance = new ApplicationVersion();

   29	String name = "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF";

   30	Properties props = new Properties();

   31	props.load(servletContext.getResourceAsStream(name));

   32

   33	/*for (Iterator iterator = props.keySet().iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {

   34	Object key = iterator.next();

   35	Object value = props.get(key);

   36	System.out.println(key+"="+value);

   37

   }*/

   38

   39	instance.CURRENT_VERSION = (String) props.get("Implementation-Version");

   40	} catch (Throwable e) {

   41	e.printStackTrace();

   42

   }

   43

   }

   44

   45	return instance.CURRENT_VERSION;

   46

   }

   47

   48	public void setServletContext(ServletContext servletContext){

   49	this.servletContext = servletContext;

   50

   }

   51

   }

3. Modify the Spring context to add the newly created bean:
   view source

   print?

   01	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

   02	<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"

   03	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

   04	xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"

   05	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"

   06	xsi:schemaLocation="

   07	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans

   08	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd

   09	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx

   10	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd

   11	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context

   12	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd

   13

   ">

   14

   15	<bean name="applicationVersion" class="com.ho.spring3.security.test1.util.ApplicationVersion"/>

   16

   17

   </beans>

4. And in your web application, the JSP displaying the library version could be like:
   view source

   print?

   1	<%@ page import="com.ho.spring3.security.test1.util.ApplicationVersion"%>

   2

   3	<%=ApplicationVersion.getVersion() %>

Note: The MANIFEST.MF could be generated or updated manually or via MAVEN, ANT.

That’s all!!!

Best regards,

Huseyin OZVEREN