Finding a java class in a Jar file (or a set of files)

Often classpath problems are hard to diagnose. Sometimes you pick up an errant class on the classpath that conflicts with a version of the class that you need. (Very evil people sometimes rip apart jars and package all of their dependent classes together in a single jar)

Any who, however it happens, it is sometimes necessary to get a list of all classes everywhere, in all jar files. Then you can search that list for duplicate instances of a class.

I can't tell you how many times I've used this trick, especially with the sometimes unclear world of what is packaged into the JDK, application server, and what is in the actual application.

Use this:

find . -name '*.jar' -exec unzip -l {} \; > all_classes.txt


That line finds all the jar files recursively from the current working directory, lists the contents of the archive, and pipes that output to a text file that can be searched.

handy voodoo.