Does URLClassLoader.addURL(URL) honor the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

Question

If I have a jar that includes a Class-Path entry in the MANIFEST.MF. If I add the jar to a URLClassLoader, are the jars in the Class-Path entry also added to the classloader? Do I need to introspect the jars that I want to add to the classloader to detect this and call addURL for each of them (recursively)?

Answer 1

It does as of JDK 1.6 according to the source code of sun.misc.URLClassPath, but it isn't specified, so take your pick ;-)