🚀 go-pugleaf

Harry J. Kobetitsch <kobet@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I am running Windows 2000 and I am using the Java 2 SDK and
> Forte 2.0. I also used Command Prompt and using javac from the
> command line and I get the same type of problem.
> 
> I have set CLASSPATH to C:\Harry\Java
> I have the following two classes that I am trying to build
> Other.class and OtherTest.class

<snip>

> Do I have the CLASSPATH set up correctly?

Well, you don't have "." in your classpath, which is sometimes a 
problem. 

However, it sounds like you don't have your source appropriately located 
according to package, which could also be the problem. I don't know the 
exact requirements of how much of the following is actually necessary, 
but I think most of it's good practice anyway:

o Don't bother setting a classpath unless you really need one. Java2 is 
much better than Java 1 at getting things right, and I find I only need 
a classpath in a few circumstances. Often I find that people with one 
set up have more hassles than those without.

o Always organise your source according to package, so if your "root" 
source directory is c:\Harry\Java, you should have
c:\Harry\Java\OtherTest.java (it's not in a package)
c:\Harry\Java\com\kobet\samples\Other.java

o Always compile from your root directory, with a -d option (I usually 
use -d ., but you could use -d classes if you wanted to keep classes and 
source separate)

o When in doubt, compile everything in one command line. This becomes 
time consuming when you have vast numbers of classes, but if a full 
compile takes about 5 seconds (which it does with a few hundred classes 
on the project I'm working on, for instance) then a problem caused by 
failing to recompile something that needed recompiling which takes 5 
minutes to figure out means I could have done 60 full recompiles in that 
time. The @files.txt syntax for javac helps here. You can put the 
following in a batch file:
dir /s /b *.java > files.txt
javac -d . @files.txt


Follow the above and you shouldn't have any problems.

-- 
Jon Skeet - skeet@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet