When one invokes java with a wrong file name like this:

  $ java -jar nosuchfile.jar

You get:

java.util.zip.ZipException: The system cannot find the file specified
        at java.util.zip.ZipFile.open(Native Method)
        at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java:112)
        at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:127)
        at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:65)

This also happens with programatic invocation of new JarFile(...);
But as you see it doesn't actually print the file name, which makes the debugging unnecessarily hard.
  xxxxx@xxxxx   2004-04-15

N/A

Yes, it would be very good to emit a better error message.
Not just here, but in other places within jar/zip.

The jar command should explicitly catch FileNotFoundException,
(among others) and issue a nice informative localized message.

  xxxxx@xxxxx   2004-04-15
The FileNotFoundException is thrown on Windows platform alreays after switched to winFileHandleOpen for long path support.
Posted Date : 2009-06-03 06:07:25.0

Except, so long as bug 6290451 is present, it does no good to catch FileNotFoundException inside the jar tool, since that exception isn't thrown by the underlying ZipFile class when a file is not found.