Ostermiller Java Utils

Open source (GPL) Java utilities maintained by Stephen Ostermiller with help from many contributors.

Visit the official website: https://utils.ostermiller.org/ for pre-compiled downloads and full documentation.

Building

Prerequisites

• Java 8+: Required for compilation and running tests
• Maven 3.x: Build system and dependency management
• GNU Make: Orchestrates the Maven build with idempotent file-based targets
• Perl: Required for generating site documentation files
• pre-commit: Git hooks framework for code quality checks (optional but recommended)

Installing Dependencies

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install default-jdk maven make perl pipx
pipx install pre-commit

On macOS (with Homebrew):

brew install openjdk maven pre-commit
# Make and Perl should already be installed

On Windows:

• Download and install OpenJDK
• Download and install Maven
• GNU Make for Windows
• Perl for Windows
• pre-commit (requires Python)

Build Commands

All builds are orchestrated through Make, which uses Maven internally:

# Build everything (compile, test, package, site)
make

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

The build is idempotent, running it a second time will only rebuid if there are changes.

Build Output

After running make, you'll find:

• Archive files in target/:
  • .jar file with compiled classes
  • -sources.jar file with Java source code
  • -bin.tar.bz2, -bin.tar.gz, -bin.zip containing the jar files
  • -project.tar.bz1, -project.tar.gz, -project.zip containing the full source code.
• API Documentation in target/site/doc/
• Website in target/site/
• Test Results in target/surefire-reports/

Version Management

The project version is stored in VERSION.txt and is automatically substituted into all build artifacts:

cat VERSION.txt  # View current version

License

GNU General Public License, version 2. See LICENSE.txt for details.