Including all the jars in a directory within the Java classpath

Question

Is there a way to include all the jar files within a directory in the classpath?

I\'m trying java -classpath lib/*.jar:. my.package.Program and it is no

Answer 1

You need to add them all separately. Alternatively, if you really need to just specify a directory, you can unjar everything into one dir and add that to your classpath. I don't recommend this approach however as you risk bizarre problems in classpath versioning and unmanagability.

Answer 2

My solution on Ubuntu 10.04 using java-sun 1.6.0_24 having all jars in "lib" directory:

java -cp .:lib/* my.main.Class

If this fails, the following command should work (prints out all *.jars in lib directory to the classpath param)

java -cp $(for i in lib/*.jar ; do echo -n $i: ; done). my.main.Class

Answer 3

Correct:

java -classpath "lib/*:." my.package.Program

Incorrect:

java -classpath "lib/a*.jar:." my.package.Program
java -classpath "lib/a*:."     my.package.Program
java -classpath "lib/*.jar:."  my.package.Program
java -classpath  lib/*:.       my.package.Program

Answer 4

If you are using Java 6, then you can use wildcards in the classpath.

Now it is possible to use wildcards in classpath definition:

javac -cp libs/* -verbose -encoding UTF-8 src/mypackage/*.java  -d build/classes

Ref: http://www.rekk.de/bloggy/2008/add-all-jars-in-a-directory-to-classpath-with-java-se-6-using-wildcards/

Answer 5

Think of a jar file as the root of a directory structure. Yes, you need to add them all separately.

Answer 6

Set the classpath in a way suitable multiple jars and current directory's class files.

CLASSPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/jdbc/lib/ojdbc6.jar:${ORACLE_HOME}/jdbc/lib/ojdbc14.jar:${ORACLE_HOME}/jdbc/lib/nls_charset12.jar; 
CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/export/home/gs806e/tops/jconn2.jar:.;
export CLASSPATH