Question

I unsuccessfully attempted to install Groovy 1.8.6 (zip distribution) on a Win XP (sp3) machine yesterday and today (the error messages stated it was unable to find the groovyStarter then I received a lengthy stack trace…). Needless to say, it was a frustrating experience. So, I decided to use the Windows installer for version 1.8.5. Groovysh functions as it should but if I write a small Groovy script and place it in a file:


println "Hello Groovy Programmer!"


…no output is displayed. Using groovy -e “println ‘Hello!'” has the exact same behavior.

Any ideas of what might cause this?

Thanks.

~Caitlin

Answer 1

I’m not sure what you mean by “installing” the binary ZIP distribution. You don’t really install anything in the usual sense of the term… you just unzip the ZIP file wherever you like. On my Windows XP laptop, I unzipped its contents into C:\groovy-1.8.6\.

I have heard some people complain of problems when they unzip into a path that contains spaces (such as C:\Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Desktop)… so perhaps that could be your issue, if you unzipped to your Desktop or something.

Just unzip the ZIP file somewhere, and add it’s /bin directory to your PATH. On a Windows XP machine:

1. Right-click “My Computer”
2. Select “Properties”
3. Go to the “Advanced” tab
4. Click the “Environment Variables” button
5. Edit the PATH variable, and add C:\groovy-1.8.6\bin (or whatever)

The Groovy installation instructions also suggest that you add a GROOVY_HOME variable (pointing to C:\groovy-1.8.6), and a JAVA_HOME variable pointing to the root directory of your Java JDK (not the JRE located inside of the JDK). However, to be honest, I only remember to add these two environment variables half the time when putting Groovy on a a new machine, and it’s never caused me problems.

With the ZIP file unzipped, and its /bin directory in your PATH, you just open a command-prompt and type:

groovy <script name>

… or, to run the GUI interface:

groovyConsole

If by chance you saw those “groovyStarter” errors because you tried to run startGroovy, then use one of the two commands above instead. The “startGroovy.bat” command is an internal script intended for indirect use through the other scripts under /bin. It will throw a java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.codehaus.groovy.tools.GroovyStarter stacktrace if you call it directly… because it needs one of the other scripts to set some variable prior to calling it.

Good luck!