What does rt.jar stand for in Java/JDK/JRE?

The most likely answer is, rt stands for RunTime. Some tend to think it stands for RooT, since this jar contains all java build-in classes. But I have yet to find any official Sun documents regarding this acronym.

Whether it stands for RunTime, RooT, or anything else is not important. The question I have is, why would the java creator chose to use such a undescriptive name. Maybe it can make your classpath shorter? But we rarely put rt.jar in system classpath.

Here are 2 reasons I don't like the name rt.jar:

• While experienced developers take it for granted, java beginners don't know what it is other than it's a jar. So it's one more questions in beginners' mind.
• The shorter the name, the easier it is to cause naming conflicts, at least visually. While rt.jar will always reside under $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib, it is possible your applications may have another jar also named rt.jar.

I know rt.jar will be with us as long as java is, but just for the sake of discussion, how would you name it differently? Maybe java.jar, or java-core.jar?

PS: What does jar stand for? Jar stands for Java Archive. A jar file usually has file name extension .jar. It contains mainly java class files but any types of files can be included, e.g., XML files, HTML files, properties files, gif/jpg image files, text files, PDF files, and binary files, and so on.

PS: What is the difference between a jar file and a zip file? Basically, a jar file is the same as a zip file, except that the jar file contains a META-INF directory to store metadata or attributes. The most well-known file is META-INF/MANIFEST.MF. You can customize the content of a MANIFEST.MF when creating a jar file, and if you don't, a default one is generated and included. For example:

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Created-By: 1.5.0_06 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)

It's perfectly fine to have other configuration files and directories under META-INF.

Tags: Java, JDK, JRE, Jar