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Java Local Development Environments How it Works The Java Virtual Machine

Dhruv Patel
Dhruv Patel
8,287 Points
Posted by Dhruv Patel
Dhruv Patel
8,287 Points

CLASSPATHS -cp

Can someone please explain to me what a classpath is, I've explored around a lot and still don't know what it is.

2 Answers

Craig Dennis
STAFF
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher
Craig Dennis
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Dhruv!

A classpath essentially tells your program where to look for it's additional code. By default that is just the current directory. If you want it to look elsewhere, like in another folder, you need to specify that folder. It's very similar to PATH in most Operating Systems.

Does that help?

Matthew Francis
Matthew Francis
6,967 Points
Matthew Francis
Matthew Francis
6,967 Points

Hey Craig,

I'm in the "IDE(InteliJ) Introduction", just referencing back.

With the video's code, do you know why you don't have to force a classpath in an IDE? but it is required to do so in the workspace so it does not return a "."?

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.printf("This is the classpath: %s %n",System.getProperty("java.class.path"));
  }
Dhruv Patel
Dhruv Patel
8,287 Points
Dhruv Patel
Dhruv Patel
8,287 Points

Thank you for the answer Craig.

Craig Dennis
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher
Craig Dennis
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher

Glad it helped!

Keep at it!