The purpose of the this command is to maintain a set of commands and services available via the command line. It has the same purpose as npm but then for Java. The command can install java command line commands directly from a URL or file path. The only requirement is that the JAR file is an executable jar with a Main-Class header.

Originally jpm was backed by a server that indexed a lot of repositories. However, this server was shutdown because nobody was really interested in it at the time. However, since you can also install executable JARs from the commandline it is still very useful. Unfortunately the command has not been refactored to use Maven Central or other Maven repos as backend.

You should first install jpm. To install download the JAR and run the init command. For example:

$ curl https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/biz/aQute/bnd/biz.aQute.jpm.run/3.5.0/biz.aQute.jpm.run-3.5.0.jar >t.jar
$ java -jar t.jar init
Home dir      /Users/aqute/Library/PackageManager
Bin  dir      /Users/aqute/Library/PackageManager/bin

After you've installed it, you should be able to do:

$ jpm version
1.0.0.201311261409
$

To find your way around jpm, you can use help.

$ jpm help
Just Another Package Manager (for Java)
Maintains a local repository of Java jars (apps or libs). Can automatically link
these jars to an OS command or OS service. For more information see

Available commands:

  ...

For each command, more extensive help is available with help <command>.

$ jpm help version

NAME
  version                     - Show the current version. The qualifier
                                represents the build date.

SYNOPSIS
   version 

The first thing you are likely want to do is installing a command. bnd, the Swiss army knife for OSGi is a good example to start. We can install bnd simply by:

$ jpm install

jpm has extensive help information. If you just enter the word help then a list of commands is given.

$ jpm help
Maintains a local repository of Java jars (apps or libs).
Can automatically link these jars to an OS command or OS
service.

Available commands: artifact, candidates, certificate,
command, deinit, find, gc, init, install, jpm, keys, log,
platform, put, register, restart, service, settings, setup, start,
status, stop, trace, version, winreg

Later version can have additional commands and/or a different text. More detailed information can be obtained with:

$ jpm help jpm
NAME
  jpm - Options valid for all commands. Must be given before
  sub command

SYNOPSIS
   jpm [options]  ...

OPTIONS
   [ -b, --base <string>] - Specify a new base directory
   (default working directory).
   ...

You can also suffix the help command with one of the listed commands:

The help information is shown in three sections:

• NAME - Displays the name and descriptive information.
• OPTIONS - If any. Will show in detail what options can be used and what they mean. It can also contain an indication of what parameters are expected.
• SYNOPSIS - A short command line with all the options.

There are a number of recurring types used in the command line.

• url - A well known url, like 'http://bndtools.org'
• file - A path on the file system in the local standard. That is on Windows use the back slash, on other operating systems use the forward slash.

Display the version of the jpm command. This is the current version number and the qualifier is the date.