JAVA_HOME on Mac OS X - Pivotal Labs

For the millionth time, cause I always forget…

Put this in ~/.bashrc:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

[UPDATE: or this, which according to Mike Swingler, follows the Java version chosen in Java Preferences:

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`

]

Also, run “sudo visudo” and add the line

Defaults        env_keep += "JAVA_HOME"

or else commands like “sudo gem install” won’t be able to find Java.

Without the above, I got the following error (which seemed to have been run through a baby-talk filter) when running “sudo gem install rjb”:

extconf.rb:44: JAVA_HOME is not setted. (RuntimeError)

5 Comments

Cloves Carneiro Jr says:

You just saved me a couple of hours, thanks for putting this up.

November 25, 2008 at 12:11 pm

sfdc says:

wow. that was incredibly useful! thanks so much for the great post.

December 22, 2008 at 5:27 am

Tyler Clemons says:

Thanks! This helped tons!

May 24, 2009 at 5:52 pm

Mike Swingler says:

You should use the /usr/libexec/java_home command, since it always follows the Java version choosen in Java Preferences.

July 29, 2009 at 8:45 am

Lennart Jörelid says:

Hello Alex,

I usually do these lines within my .bash_profile, to be able to quickly and smoothly switch between java versions on Mac. (This is really nice when wanting to test some code on multiple java versions). When I need to switch JDK, I simply use either of the aliases

useJdk15
useJdk16

The snippets for this in .bash_profile are:

…

# Set roots for JDK version switching
export JAVA_HOME_ROOT=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions
export JAVA_15_HOME=${JAVA_HOME_ROOT}/1.5/Home
export JAVA_16_HOME=${JAVA_HOME_ROOT}/1.6/Home

…

# Add JAVA_HOME to the path
JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

# Augment the path
export PROTO_PATH=/Users/lj/Bin:${M2_HOME}/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH:/Users/lj/Bin:${GERONIMO_HOME}/bin:/Library/PostgreSQL/8.3/bin
export PATH=${PROTO_PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin

…

# Manage JDK switching
function useJdk16()
{
# Assign JAVA_HOME
export JAVA_HOME=${JAVA_16_HOME}

# Adjust the path
export PATH=${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${PROTO_PATH}
}
function useJdk15()
{
# Assign JAVA_HOME
export JAVA_HOME=${JAVA_15_HOME}

# Adjust the path
export PATH=${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${PROTO_PATH}
}

# Define the standard JDK when working with the terminal.
useJdk16 ;

September 16, 2009 at 1:17 am

5 Comments

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