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:

   Manifest-Version: 1.0
   Class-Path: 
   Implementation-Title: MyApplication
   Implementation-Version: 1.2.3
   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:

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

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

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

   Manifest-Version: 1.0
   Class-Path: 
   Implementation-Title: MyApplication
   Implementation-Version: 1.2.3
   Implementation-Vendor: JavaBlog.fr
   

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

   <%
   //Get version of application
   java.util.Properties prop = new java.util.Properties();
   prop.load(getServletContext().getResourceAsStream("/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF"));
   String applVersion = prop.getProperty("Implementation-Version");  
   %>
   <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:

   Manifest-Version: 1.0
   Class-Path: 
   Implementation-Title: MyApplication
   Implementation-Version: 1.2.3
   Implementation-Vendor: JavaBlog.fr
   

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

   package com.ho.spring3.security.test1.util;
   
   import java.util.Iterator;
   import java.util.Properties;
   
   import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
   
   import org.springframework.web.context.ServletContextAware;
   
   /**
    * Bean containing the version of application from "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF" file.
    * @author huseyin
    *
    */
   public class ApplicationVersion implements ServletContextAware{
   	
   	// ----------------------------------- PRIVATE ATTRIBUTES
   	private static String CURRENT_VERSION = null;
   	private static ApplicationVersion instance = null;
   	private static ServletContext servletContext = null;
   
   	// ------------------------------------- PUBLIC FUNCTIONS
   	private ApplicationVersion(){}
   
   	public static synchronized String getVersion(){
   		if(instance == null){
   			try {
   				instance = new ApplicationVersion();
   				String name = "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF";
   				Properties props = new Properties();
   				props.load(servletContext.getResourceAsStream(name));
   				
   				/*for (Iterator iterator = props.keySet().iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {
   					Object key = iterator.next();
   					Object value = props.get(key);
   					System.out.println(key+"="+value);
   				}*/
   				
   				instance.CURRENT_VERSION = (String) props.get("Implementation-Version");
   			} catch (Throwable e) {
   				e.printStackTrace();
   			}
   		}
   		
   		return instance.CURRENT_VERSION;
   	}
   	
   	public void setServletContext(ServletContext servletContext){
   		this.servletContext = servletContext;
   	}	
   }
   

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

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   	xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
   	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   	xsi:schemaLocation="
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
   	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
   	">
   	
   	<bean name="applicationVersion" class="com.ho.spring3.security.test1.util.ApplicationVersion"/>
   
   </beans>
   

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

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

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

That’s all!!!

Best regards,

Huseyin OZVEREN