Running Java Program from Command-line

Question

I downloaded a java program that consists of two folders src and classes containing the source files and class files respectively. Now, the src and classes folders contain a several nested sub-folders wherein the last sub-folder contains the source and class files respectively. More precisely, the path to a source and class file is src/edu/univ/.java and classes/edu/univ/.class. Given that the file containing the main function is Main.java, how can I run this program from command-line.

I have tried:

 java  src/edu/univ/Main but I get Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: src/edu/univ/Main

I have also tried: java src.edu.univ.Main but I encounter a similar error

Answer 1

From the root of the project:

java -cp classes edu.univ.Main

This tells the JRE that the classes directory is the root of your package hierarchy. The JRE will load packages from there, following the directory/package naming hierarchy.

• http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/package/managingfiles.html
• http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/tools/windows/classpath.html