Book Image

Introduction to Programming

By : Nick Samoylov
Book Image

Introduction to Programming

By: Nick Samoylov

Overview of this book

Have you ever thought about making your computer do what you want it to do? Do you want to learn to program, but just don't know where to start? Instead of guiding you in the right direction, have other learning resources got you confused with over-explanations? Don't worry. Look no further. Introduction to Programming is here to help. Written by an industry expert who understands the challenges faced by those from a non-programming background, this book takes a gentle, hand-holding approach to introducing you to the world of programming. Beginning with an introduction to what programming is, you'll go on to learn about languages, their syntax, and development environments. With plenty of examples for you to code alongside reading, the book's practical approach will help you to grasp everything it has to offer. More importantly, you'll understand several aspects of application development. As a result, you'll have your very own application running by the end of the book. To help you comprehensively understand Java programming, there are exercises at the end of each chapter to keep things interesting and encourage you to add your own personal touch to the code and, ultimately, your application.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Setting the classpath

In order for javac to compile the code and for java to execute it, they need to know the location of the files that compose the application. In Chapter 2, Java Language Basics, while explaining the format of the javac and java commands, we described how the -classpath option allows you to list all of the classes and third-party libraries your application is using (or, in other words, depends on). Now, we will talk about setting this list.

Manual setting

There are two ways to set it:

  • Via the -classpath command-line option
  • Via the CLASSPATH environment variable

We will describe how to use the -classpath option first. It has the same format in the javac and java commands:

-classpath dir1;dir2\*;dir3\alibrary...