---
layout: documentation
title: Build Java
---

Build Java
==========

You can use Bazel to build your Java application. In this tutorial you'll learn how to:

* Build your first Java target
* Add dependencies to your target
* Use multiple packages
* Deploy your target

## Setting up your workspace

Suppose that you have an existing project in a directory, say,
`~/gitroot/my-project/`. Create an empty file at
`~/gitroot/my-project/WORKSPACE` to show Bazel where your project's root is.

## Creating Your Own Build File

Use the following commands to make a small Java project for this example:

{% highlight bash %}
$ # If you're not already there, move to your workspace directory.
$ cd ~/gitroot/my-project
$ mkdir -p src/main/java/com/example
$ cat > src/main/java/com/example/ProjectRunner.java <<'EOF'
package com.example;

public class ProjectRunner {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Greeting.sayHi();
    }
}
EOF
$ cat > src/main/java/com/example/Greeting.java <<'EOF'
package com.example;

public class Greeting {
    public static void sayHi() {
        System.out.println("Hi!");
    }
}
EOF
{% endhighlight %}

Bazel figures out what to build by looking for files named `BUILD` in your
workspace, so we'll create a `BUILD` file in the `~/gitroot/my-project`
directory.  Add the following lines to this BUILD file:

{% highlight python %}
# ~/gitroot/my-project/BUILD
java_binary(
    name = "my-runner",
    srcs = glob(["**/*.java"]),
    main_class = "com.example.ProjectRunner",
)
{% endhighlight %}

`java_binary` is the type of thing this rule will build.
`glob(["**/*.java"])` is a handy shorthand for "recursively include every file
that ends with .java" (see the
[build encyclopedia](/docs/be/functions.html#glob) for more information about
globbing). `com.example.ProjectRunner` specifies the class that contains the
main method.

Now you are ready to build your Java binary:

{% highlight bash %}
$ cd ~/gitroot/my-project
$ bazel build //:my-runner
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //:my-runner up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/my-runner.jar
  bazel-bin/my-runner
INFO: Elapsed time: 1.021s, Critical Path: 0.83s
$ bazel-bin/my-runner
Hi!
{% endhighlight %}

Congratulations, you've just built your first Bazel target!

## Adding Dependencies

Creating one rule to build your entire project may be sufficient for small
projects, but as projects get larger it's important to break up the build into
self-contained libraries that can be assembled into a final product.  This way
the entire world doesn't need to be rebuilt on small changes and Bazel can
parallelize more of the build steps.

To break up a project, create separate rules for each subcomponent and then
make them depend on each other. For the example above, add the following rules
to the `BUILD` file:

{% highlight python %}
java_binary(
    name = "my-other-runner",
    srcs = ["src/main/java/com/example/ProjectRunner.java"],
    main_class = "com.example.ProjectRunner",
    deps = [":greeter"],
)

java_library(
    name = "greeter",
    srcs = ["src/main/java/com/example/Greeting.java"],
)
{% endhighlight %}

This builds the same files as before, but in a different way: now Bazel will
build the `greeter` library first and then build `my-other-runner`. Try building
and running `//:my-other-runner`:

{% highlight bash %}
$ bazel run //:my-other-runner
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //:my-other-runner up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/my-other-runner.jar
  bazel-bin/my-other-runner
INFO: Elapsed time: 2.454s, Critical Path: 1.58s

INFO: Running command line: bazel-bin/my-other-runner
Hi!
{% endhighlight %}

Now if you edit `ProjectRunner.java` and rebuild `my-other-runner`,
`Greeting.java` will not need to be recompiled.

## Using Multiple Packages

For larger projects, you will often be dealing with several directories. You
can refer to targets defined in other BUILD files using the syntax
`//path/to/directory:target-name`.  For example, suppose
`src/main/java/com/example/` has a `cmdline/` subdirectory with the following
file:

{% highlight bash %}
$ mkdir -p src/main/java/com/example/cmdline
$ cat > src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/Runner.java <<'EOF'
package com.example.cmdline;

import com.example.Greeting;

public class Runner {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Greeting.sayHi();
    }
}
EOF
{% endhighlight %}

`Runner.java` depends on `com.example.Greeting`, so we could add a `BUILD` file
at `src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/BUILD` that contained the following rule:

{% highlight python %}
# ~/gitroot/my-project/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/BUILD
java_binary(
    name = "runner",
    srcs = ["Runner.java"],
    main_class = "com.example.cmdline.Runner",
    deps = ["//:greeter"]
)
{% endhighlight %}

However, by default, build rules are _private_. This means that they can only be
referred to by rules in the same BUILD file. This prevents libraries that are
implementation details from leaking into public APIs, but it also means that you
must explicitly allow `runner` to depend on `//:greeter`. As is, if we
build `runner` we'll get a permissions error:

{% highlight bash %}
$ bazel build //src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner
ERROR: /home/user/gitroot/my-project/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/BUILD:2:1:
  Target '//:greeter' is not visible from target '//src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner'.
  Check the visibility declaration of the former target if you think the dependency is legitimate.
ERROR: Analysis of target '//src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner' failed; build aborted.
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.091s
{% endhighlight %}

You can make a rule visible to rules in other BUILD files by adding a
`visibility = level` attribute.  Change the `greeter` rule in
`~/gitroot/my-project/BUILD` to be visible to our new rule:

{% highlight python %}
java_library(
    name = "greeter",
    srcs = ["src/main/java/com/example/Greeting.java"],
    visibility = ["//src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:__pkg__"],
)
{% endhighlight %}

This makes `//:greeter` visible to any rule in the
`//src/main/java/com/example/cmdline` package. Now we can build and
run the `runner` binary:

{% highlight bash %}
$ bazel run //src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner.jar
  bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner
INFO: Elapsed time: 1.576s, Critical Path: 0.81s

INFO: Running command line: bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner
Hi!
{% endhighlight %}

See the [build encyclopedia](/docs/be/common-definitions.html#common.visibility) for more
visibility options.

## Deploying

If you look at the contents of
_bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner.jar_, you can see that it
only contains `Runner.class`, not its dependencies (`Greeting.class`):

{% highlight bash %}
$ jar tf bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner.jar
META-INF/
META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
com/
com/example/
com/example/cmdline/
com/example/cmdline/Runner.class
{% endhighlight %}

This works for running locally (the `runner` script Bazel generates adds the
greeter jar to the classpath) but will not work if we want to copy `runner.jar`
to another machine and use it as a standalone binary. To build a self-contained
jar that can be deployed, build `runner_deploy.jar` (or, more generally,
`<target-name>_deploy.jar`):

{% highlight bash %}
$ bazel build //src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner_deploy.jar
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //src/main/java/com/example/cmdline:runner_deploy.jar up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/src/main/java/com/example/cmdline/runner_deploy.jar
INFO: Elapsed time: 1.700s, Critical Path: 0.23s
{% endhighlight %}

`runner_deploy.jar` will contain all of its dependencies.