Javac options misunderstood

Question

I'm following book HeadFirst Servlets and JSPs.

In an example, to compile the servlet, it uses the command javac -classpath /usr/share/tomcat7/lib/servlet-api.jar:classes:. -d classes src/com/example/web/BeerSelect.java javac -classpath /usr/share/tomcat7/lib/servlet-api.jar:classes:. -d classes src/com/example/web/BeerSelect.java

I don't understand the effect of ":." after classes in this command.

Answer 1

The : is the separator and . stands for the current directory. So it's saying "the class path should contain the jar file '/usr/share/tomcat7/lib/servlet-api.jar' and the 'classes' directory, as well as the current directory."