Class documentation from a jar file

[nitinram agarwal]

Hi,
In my current project, I work on some third party product and the product gets upgraded with new features etc and typically we receive an update on semi annual or annual basis. With each upgrade the version number of the product changes (in line with Jdk release like Java 5/6 etc).
The issue that issue I am facing is that though the release is well documented.I need to get an idea of how an existing class has changed and what are the new API/packages. I want to know if there is any kind of coding which can be done, which takes a jar and then give me a documents (something similar to Java API).
I plan to spend sometime reading google etc but due to time constraint, am reaching to forum. Any help or pointer will be really helpful.

Regards,
Ramakant

[Ivan Jozsef Balazs]

Does that product not come with documentation and release notes?

A jar file is a zip file, so you can get the list of the classes.

Anyway, the utility javap (contained in the development kit) tells about the methods of a class.

[Steve Fahlbusch]

assuming you are on a windows platform.... (not necessary on OSX or *inx)

get win merge... this allows you to compare two directory paths for differences. that way you will know all of the differences. You can then use other tools to examine the diffs.

[nitinram agarwal]

Thanks for the details. For the time being, I am relying on javap to go through the details as documentation is not very readable.