Including jars in classpath on commandline (javac or apt)

Question

Try the following:

java -cp jar1:jar2:jar3:dir1:. HelloWorld

The default classpath (unless there is a CLASSPATH environment variable) is the current directory so if you redefine it, make sure you're adding the current directory (.) to the classpath as I have done.

In windows:

java -cp C:/.../jardir1/*;C:/.../jardir2/* class_with_main_method

make sure that the class with the main function is in one of the included jars

Note for Windows users, the jars should be separated by ; and not :.

for example: javac -cp external_libs\lib1.jar;other\lib2.jar;

Use the -cp or -classpath switch.

$ java -help  
Usage: java [-options] class [args...]  
           (to execute a class)  
   or  java [-options] -jar jarfile [args...]  
           (to execute a jar file)  

where options include:  
...  
    -cp <class search path of directories and zip/jar files>  
    -classpath <class search path of directories and zip/jar files>  
                  A ; separated list of directories, JAR archives,  
                  and ZIP archives to search for class files.  

(Note that the separator used to separate entries on the classpath differs between OSes, on my Windows machine it is ;, in *nix it is usually :.)

javac HelloWorld.java -classpath ./javax.jar , assuming javax is in current folder, and compile target is "HelloWorld.java", and you can compile without a main method