Question

I have two classes:

MyApplication
Library

The Library has already been compiled into Library.class and the source code is no longer available. I am now trying to compile MyApplication from source. MyApplication depends on the Library. The Library has a package name of org.myCompany. I tried setting my classpath to the following:

set CLASSPATH=C:\java\project\org\myCompany\Library.class;.

which produced the following javac compiler error message:

MyApplication.java:33: cannot find symbol
symbol: class Library
location: class MyApplication
          Library theLibrary = new Library();

So I changed my classpath to be:

set CLASSPATH=C:\java\project\;.

which produced the exact same error message.

How do I set my Windows classpath to include the Library.class file? Should it point at the folder contains the org\myCompany subfolders? Or point directly to the class file? Or to the folder containing the class file (even though the class is in a package and belongs in a subfolder)?

I do an echo %CLASSPATH% after my set command and the classpath is being set correctly. I also made an ant build.xml file and encountered the same problem. In fact, ant -verbose confirmed that my classpath is being set correctly.

Answer 1

You cannot add a single class in your classpath like this. You have 3 solutions:

• add this class in the path of your other compiled classes (respecting the package naming of your directories)
• add the root directory of this class in your classpath (in your case “C:\java\project\”)
• add this single class into a jar and add this jar to the classpath

For your problem, the thrird choice is cleaner: external dependencies normally are packaged into jar files.