Java setting classpath in bash

Question

I've been having some trouble setting -classpath properly to get a project to run:

What I thought I was supposed to do:

java -classpath /path/to/classes package.Main

The only thing so far that works:

cd /path/to/classes
java -classpath . package.Main

I've also tried to do -classpath /path/to/classes:.

I need to be able to run that class from different directories so I can't use the solution that did work for me.

I am obviously missing something really stupid here.

EDIT: I am using cygwin

Answer 1

The problem was the way classpath is handled in cygwin:

Since java is a windows program it doesn't recognize the cygwin path I gave.

The fix was:

java -classpath `cygpath -wp /path/to/classes/` package.Main

Hope it helps someone else.