Alex ChaffeeAlex Chaffee
JAVA_HOME on Mac OS X
edit Posted by Alex Chaffee on Thursday June 26, 2008 at 06:57PM

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)

Comments

  1. Cloves Carneiro Jr Cloves Carneiro Jr on November 25, 2008 at 12:11PM

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

  2. sfdc sfdc on December 22, 2008 at 05:27AM

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

  3. Tyler Clemons Tyler Clemons on May 24, 2009 at 05:52PM

    Thanks! This helped tons!

  4. Mike Swingler Mike Swingler on July 29, 2009 at 08:45AM

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

  5. Lennart Jörelid Lennart Jörelid on September 16, 2009 at 01:17AM

    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 ;