How do class paths work with JAR files?

Hey all,

I have in the manifest file a path to a folder, plugins. In it I have a dir and files myDir/*.* so when unzipped it has <install-dir>/plugins/myDir/*.*. In the MF file I indicate the plugins dir as part of the class-path. When I want to load a .class file from the myDir/ dir below plugins, and the classes in there do NOT have package names in them, how is that done? Every time I try to access a file via Class.forName() it says ClassNotFoundException. If I hard-code the string as "myDir/myplugin" or use package identifer "myDir.myplugin" it still doesn't work. I don't want to unzip a ton of files from each plugin in one dir. I want a more organized way of storing them. However, because plugins can be added after the file is unzipped, I can't specify all the locations of plugins/<dir> dir's in the MF file if more are added later. Is there a way to locate and load a class in ANY dir, even those that are NOT in the class-path? Please help me out if you know. Thanks.

[1021 byte] By [buckman1] at [2007-9-27 14:54:31]
# 1
I really can't help accept to say that it is the way it is to avoid naming conflicts i think. can you make the plugins packages ? Otherwise especially if various people write them there may be some crazy naming conflicts hidden in trying to load things from anyplace.
garyjones32 at 2007-7-5 22:54:39 > top of Java-index,Archived Forums,Java Programming...
# 2
I can do that. I was just thinking that there is a way to specify a "root" path, and in the Class.forName() call to be able to provide a path to the file to load. As I am finding out, this doesn't work.
buckman1 at 2007-7-5 22:54:39 > top of Java-index,Archived Forums,Java Programming...