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Byron Tymvios

A jar file can be extracted using the jar command that is part of the JDK. It can be found at <JAVA_HOME>binjar.exe on Windows machines and at <JAVA_HOME>/bin/jar on *nix machines (where <JAVA_HOME> is the root installation of your JDK). In a command window/shell terminal type the jar command followed by the options xf 'jar -xf <filename>' (where <filename> is the jar file you want to extract). This will extract the jar to the present directory/folder.
Follow this link for a full explanation of the capabilities of the jar tool and all available command line switches. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/windows/jar.html

To extract myApp.jar to it's current directory you would navigate to the directory it's contained in and use: jar -xf myApp.jar

Since jar files are essentialy .zip files, you could also use a zip tool like Winzip or Winrar to view the jar file as well as extract it. This could be easier than using the jar tool itself as these tools have gui's.