The Class-Path elements within the 1.7 distributions are incorrect according to the manifest specification located here: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/jar/jar.html#JAR%20Manifest Classpath entries are delimited by a backslash. If someone tries to use batik as a library module within netbeans he ends up with an "Illegal character in path at index 0: \" error message. P.S: I'm sorry for the use of this component but I didn't found any better component.
Hoping that this gets some attention soon. Builds fail in Netbeans when attempting to use Batik as a module dependency in a project there. That can affect a lot of users.
From the MANIFEST: Manifest-Version: 1.0 Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.6.5 Created-By: 23.1-b03 (Oracle Corporation) Implementation-Title: Batik Implementation-Version: 1.8pre+r${svn-revision-number} Implementation-Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation (http://xmlgraph ics.apache.org/batik/) Build-Id: 20120801-111826-CDT (jjones [Windows 7 6.1 amd64, Java 1.7.0 _05-b06]) Main-Class: org.apache.batik.apps.svgbrowser.Main Class-Path: lib/batik-ext.jar \ lib/batik-dom.jar \ lib/batik-css.jar \ lib/batik-svg-dom.jar \ lib /batik-gvt.jar \ lib/batik-parser.jar \ lib/batik -script.jar \ lib/batik-bridge.jar \ lib/batik-sw ing.jar \ lib/batik-anim.jar \ lib/batik-transcod er.jar \ lib/batik-gui-util.jar \ lib/batik-awt-u til.jar \ lib/batik-codec.jar \ lib/batik-util.ja r \ lib/batik-root.jar \ lib/batik-svggen.jar \ lib/batik-xml.jar \ batik-squiggle.jar \ batik-rasterizer.jar \ batik-pp.jar \ lib/xerces _2_5_0.jar \ lib/xalan-2.6.0.jar \ lib/xml-apis.j ar \ lib/xml-apis-ext.jar \ lib/pdf-transcoder.ja r \ lib/js.jar
Posting simple manual fix for those finding this same issue: 1. Unpack the batik.jar, extracting the MANIFEST.MF file. 2. Edit it to drop in the text below. 3. Repack batik.jar. Manifest-Version: 1.0 Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.6.5 Created-By: 1.4.2_12-b03 (Sun Microsystems Inc.) Implementation-Title: Batik Implementation-Version: 1.7+r608262 Implementation-Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/) Build-Id: 20080106-111140-EST (cam [Linux 2.6.22.8 i386, Java 1.4.2_12-b03]) Main-Class: org.apache.batik.apps.svgbrowser.Main Class-Path: lib/batik-ext.jar lib/batik-dom.jar lib/batik-css.jar lib/batik-svg-dom.jar lib/batik-gvt.jar lib/batik-parser.jar lib/batik-script.jar lib/batik-bridge.jar lib/batik-swing.jar lib/batik-anim.jar lib/batik-transcoder.jar lib/batik-gui-util.jar lib/batik-awt-util.jar lib/batik-codec.jar lib/batik-util.jar lib/batik-root.jar lib/batik-svggen.jar lib/batik-xml.jar batik-squiggle.jar batik-rasterizer.jar batik-pp.jar lib/xerces_2_5_0.jar lib/xalan-2.6.0.jar lib/xml-apis.jar lib/xml-apis-ext.jar lib/pdf-transcoder.jar lib/js.jar
According to the referred documentation, "URLs are separated by one or more spaces". The implementation seemed to point towards that but, the backslashes which were meant to escape the newline (often used in programming code) were being interpreted verbatim... Fixed in r1369701. Thank you for reporting and for providing useful information towards the fix!