How do I run a java program from a different directory?

Question

I have a java program that I would like to be able to run from anywhere on my machine. I would like to run it from my Cygwin command prompt. I've made scripts to call the java program. I added the location of the java program to the classpath, and the scripts work when I run them from the java program's directory. However, when I try to run from any other directory, I get: ``` java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: commandprogram/CommandProgram ``` This is my script: ``` #!/bin/sh CWD=`dirname "$0"` java -cp "$CWD/classes;$CWD/lib/AJarFile.jar" commandprogram/CommandProgram ``` Changing the java line to the following: ``` java -cp "$CWD/classes;$CWD/classes/commandprogram;$CWD/lib/AJarFile.jar" CommandProgram ``` produces the same results.

Accepted Answer

After trying just about everything I could think of, I echoed out the command and saw that there was mixing of Cygwin paths and Windows paths. The solution was to change the script to:

```
#!/bin/sh
CWD=`dirname "$0"`
CWD=`cygpath -w "$CWD"`
java -cp "$CWD/classes;$CWD/lib/AJarFile.jar" commandprogram/CommandProgram
```

Then CWD changed to "C:\Program Files\..." instead of "/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/..."

I had previously encountered this problem and solved it with the `cygpath -w` solution, but then changed my script slightly and didn't notice that the path problem came back.

How do I run a java program from a different directory?

Solution

Problem