Compiling and Running Java Programs

Abstract

This chapter outlines the basics of using the tools provided with Java to compile and run code. It describes how the source code of Java class is structured, how it can be compiled using the “javac” compiler (provided with Oracle’s Java Development Kit or the OpenJDK) and how it can be run on the Java Virtual Machine from the command prompt / terminal. It explains how Java code is put into packages, and how these packages relate to the Java classpath, which it is necessary to set for the Java runtime to locate compiled code. The chapter also describes how the same process of editing, compiling, and running code can be done much more easily using the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which also provides many other useful facilities such as assisting with automatic code generation and highlighting errors. It also shows how Eclipse can automatically put classes into Java modules that may contain multiple packages.