Often times, this error is causing by the mismatch order between “m” and “f” Jar options.

For example,

jar -cvfm manifest.txt example.jar com/mkyong/awt/*.class

The above command will causing the following error :

java.io.IOException: invalid header field
	at java.util.jar.Attributes.read(Attributes.java:406)
	at java.util.jar.Manifest.read(Manifest.java:199)
	at java.util.jar.Manifest.<init>(Manifest.java:69)
	at sun.tools.jar.Main.run(Main.java:150)
	at sun.tools.jar.Main.main(Main.java:1044)

Did you spot the error? The “m” and “manifest” is not match, the system is consider your manifest file as “example.jar” :)

The letters “m” and “f” must appear in the same order that “manifest” and “jarfile” appear.

The working command should be

jar -cvmf manifest.txt example.jar com/mkyong/awt/*.class

Please read this article about the correct way to add manifest into your Jar file.

Any Java questions or problems? please post at this JavaNullPointer.com forum, see you there ~