Quarkus Faces: Uber-Jar Support!

An Uber-JAR, also known as a fat JAR or JAR with dependencies, is a Java Archive (JAR) file that contains a Java program and its dependencies. This means that the Uber-JAR functions as a single distribution of the software, without requiring any additional Java code. Here are some advantages of Uber-JARs:

• Portability: Uber-JARs are portable.
• Ease of execution: Uber-JARs are easy to execute in IDEs.
• All-in-one: Uber-JARs are all-in-one distributions of software.

Quarkus offers the ability to build Uber-JARs by adding quarkus.package.jar.type=uber-jar to your application.properties file.

QuarkusFaces users have been unable to build Uber-JARs due to MyFaces' lack of support for the quarkus.package.jar.type=uber-jar property. In 2022, a MyFaces ticket was opened to address this limitation: MYFACES-4427. This has been a significant pain point for users looking to distribute their Faces applications as a single file.

The Issue

The main challenge is that Java EE applications can include multiple web-fragment.xml and faces-config.xml files, while an Uber-JAR only supports one of each. To build a functional Uber-JAR, these files must be merged into a single, unified configuration. Additionally, all ServiceLoader resources, also known as SPI files, must be merged as well. Examples of SPI files include service/javax.servlet.ServletContainerInitializer and services/jakarta.el.ExpressionFactory.

The Solution

Apache MyFaces 4.1.0-RC3 has added support to merge all of the above files properly so the final Uber-JAR will have the correct configuration. Now you can build and run your Faces application as an Uber-JAR with the following command:

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1mvn clean package -Dquarkus.package.jar.type=uber-jar
2java -jar target/myapp-1.0-SNAPSHOT-runner.jar