Including all the jars in a directory within the Java classpath

Question

Is there a way to include all the jar files within a directory in the classpath   I m trying java -classpath lib   jar   my package Program and it is not able to find class files that are certainly in those jars   Do I need to add each jar file to the classpath separately

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Please note that wildcard expansion is broken for Java 7 on Windows.

Check out this StackOverflow issue for more information.

The workaround is to put a semicolon right after the wildcard. java -cp "somewhere/*;"

User · Answer

Correct   java -classpath  lib      my package Program   Incorrect   java -classpath  lib a  jar    my package Program java -classpath  lib a         my package Program java -classpath  lib   jar     my package Program java -classpath  lib           my package Program

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Set the classpath in a way suitable multiple jars and current directory s class files    CLASSPATH   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib ojdbc6 jar   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib ojdbc14 jar   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib nls charset12 jar   CLASSPATH  CLASSPATH  export home gs806e tops jconn2 jar    export CLASSPATH

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Short answer  java -classpath lib     my package Program  Oracle provides documentation on using wildcards in classpaths here for Java 6 and here for Java 7  under the section heading Understanding class path wildcards   As I write this  the two pages contain the same information   Here s a summary of the highlights    In general  to include all of the JARs in a given directory  you can use the wildcard    not   jar   The wildcard only matches JARs  not class files  to get all classes in a directory  just end the classpath entry at the directory name  The above two options can be combined to include all JAR and class files in a directory  and the usual classpath precedence rules apply  E g  -cp  classes  jars   The wildcard will not search for JARs in subdirectories  The above bullet points are true if you use the CLASSPATH system property or the -cp or -classpath command line flags  However  if you use the Class-Path JAR manifest header  as you might do with an ant build file   wildcards will not be honored    Yes  my first link is the same one provided in the top-scoring answer  which I have no hope of overtaking   but that answer doesn t provide much explanation beyond the link  Since that sort of behavior is discouraged on Stack Overflow these days  I thought I d expand on it

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My solution on Ubuntu 10 04 using java-sun 1 6 0 24 having all jars in  lib  directory   java -cp   lib   my main Class  If this fails  the following command should work  prints out all   jars in lib directory to the classpath param   java -cp   for i in lib   jar   do echo -n  i    done   my main Class

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class from wepapp      gt  mvn clean install     gt  java -cp  webapp target webapp-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT WEB-INF lib tool-jar-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT jar webapp target webapp-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT WEB-INF lib    com xx xx util EncryptorUtils param1 param2

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The only way I know how is to do it individually  for example   setenv CLASSPATH  User username newfolder jarfile jar jarfile2 jar jarfile3 jar     Hope that helps

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We get around this problem by deploying a main jar file myapp jar which contains a manifest  Manifest mf  file specifying a classpath with the other required jars  which are then deployed alongside it  In this case  you only need to declare java -jar myapp jar when running the code    So if you deploy the main jar into some directory  and then put the dependent jars into a lib folder beneath that  the manifest looks like   Manifest-Version  1 0 Implementation-Title  myapp Implementation-Version  1 0 1 Class-Path  lib dep1 jar lib dep2 jar   NB  this is platform-independent - we can use the same jars to launch on a UNIX server or on a Windows PC

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You need to add them all separately   Alternatively  if you really need to just specify a directory  you can unjar everything into one dir and add that to your classpath   I don t recommend this approach however as you risk bizarre problems in classpath versioning and unmanagability

User · Answer

Correct   java -classpath  lib      my package Program   Incorrect   java -classpath  lib a  jar    my package Program java -classpath  lib a         my package Program java -classpath  lib   jar     my package Program java -classpath  lib           my package Program

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Think of a jar file as the root of a directory structure  Yes  you need to add them all separately

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All the above solutions work great if you develop and run the Java application outside any IDE like Eclipse or Netbeans   If you are on Windows 7 and used Eclipse IDE for Development in Java  you might run into issues if using Command Prompt to run the class files built inside Eclipse   E g  Your source code in Eclipse is having the following package hierarchy  edu sjsu myapp Main java  You have json jar as an external dependency for the Main java  When you try running Main java from within Eclipse  it will run without any issues   But when you try running this using Command Prompt after compiling Main java in Eclipse  it will shoot some weird errors saying  ClassNotDef Error blah blah    I assume you are in the working directory of your source code     Use the following syntax to run it from command prompt       javac -cp    json jar  Main java     java -cp    json jar  edu sjsu myapp Main    Don t miss the   above    This is because you have placed the Main java inside the package edu sjsu myapp and java exe will look for the exact pattern   Hope it helps

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You need to add them all separately   Alternatively  if you really need to just specify a directory  you can unjar everything into one dir and add that to your classpath   I don t recommend this approach however as you risk bizarre problems in classpath versioning and unmanagability

User · Answer

If you really need to specify all the  jar files dynamically you could use shell scripts  or Apache Ant  There s a commons project called Commons Launcher which basically lets you specify your startup script as an ant build file  if you see what I mean    Then  you can specify something like    lt path id  base class path  gt       lt pathelement path    resources dir    gt       lt fileset dir    extensions dir   includes    jar    gt       lt fileset dir    lib dir   includes    jar   gt   lt  path gt    In your launch build file  which will launch your application with the correct classpath

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Not a direct solution to being able to set    to -cp but I hope you could use the following script to ease the situation a bit for dynamic class-paths and lib directories    libDir2Scan4jars     test  cp     for j in  ls   libDir2Scan4jars    jar   do if     j           then cp  cp  j  fi  done  echo  cp  cut -c2-   cp   gt   tmpCP tmp  export tmpCLASSPATH  cat  tmpCP tmp   if     tmpCLASSPATH           then echo    echo  classpath set  you can now use    gt          java -cp   tmpCLASSPATH   echo    else echo    echo  Error please check libDir2Scan4jars path   echo    fi     Scripted for Linux  could have a similar one for windows too  If proper directory is provided as input to the  libDir2Scan4jars   the script will scan all the jars and create a classpath string and export it to a env variable  tmpCLASSPATH

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The only way I know how is to do it individually  for example   setenv CLASSPATH  User username newfolder jarfile jar jarfile2 jar jarfile3 jar     Hope that helps

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Order of arguments to java command is also important  c  projects CloudMirror gt java Javaside -cp  quot jna-5 6 0 jar    quot  Error  Unable to initialize main class Javaside Caused by  java lang NoClassDefFoundError  com sun jna Callback  versus c  projects CloudMirror gt java -cp  quot jna-5 6 0 jar    quot  Javaside Exception in thread  quot main quot  java lang UnsatisfiedLinkError  Unable

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Windows    java -cp file jar dir   my app ClassName   Linux    java -cp file jar dir   my app ClassName   Remind  - Windows path separator is   - Linux path separator is   - In Windows if cp argument does not contains white space  the  quotes  is optional

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You can try java -Djava ext dirs jarDirectory  http   docs oracle com javase 6 docs technotes guides extensions spec html  Directory for external jars when running java

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For windows quotes are required and   should be used as separator  e g    java -cp  target    target  dependency     my package Main

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Order of arguments to java command is also important  c  projects CloudMirror gt java Javaside -cp  quot jna-5 6 0 jar    quot  Error  Unable to initialize main class Javaside Caused by  java lang NoClassDefFoundError  com sun jna Callback  versus c  projects CloudMirror gt java -cp  quot jna-5 6 0 jar    quot  Javaside Exception in thread  quot main quot  java lang UnsatisfiedLinkError  Unable

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Using Java 6 or later  the classpath option supports wildcards  Note the following   Use straight quotes   quot   Use    not   jar  Windows  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  Unix  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  This is similar to Windows  but uses   instead of    If you cannot use wildcards  bash allows the following syntax  where lib is the directory containing all the Java archive files    java -cp  quot   printf  s  lib   jar  quot    Note that using a classpath is incompatible with the -jar option  See also  Execute jar file with multiple classpath libraries from command prompt  Understanding Wildcards From the Classpath document   Class path entries can contain the basename wildcard character    which is considered equivalent to specifying a list of all the files in the directory with the extension  jar or  JAR  For example  the class path entry foo   specifies all JAR files in the directory named foo  A classpath entry consisting simply of   expands to a list of all the jar files in the current directory  A class path entry that contains   will not match class files  To match both classes and JAR files in a single directory foo  use either foo foo   or foo   foo  The order chosen determines whether the classes and resources in foo are loaded before JAR files in foo  or vice versa  Subdirectories are not searched recursively  For example  foo   looks for JAR files only in foo  not in foo bar  foo baz  etc  The order in which the JAR files in a directory are enumerated in the expanded class path is not specified and may vary from platform to platform and even from moment to moment on the same machine  A well-constructed application should not depend upon any particular order  If a specific order is required then the JAR files can be enumerated explicitly in the class path  Expansion of wildcards is done early  prior to the invocation of a program s main method  rather than late  during the class-loading process itself  Each element of the input class path containing a wildcard is replaced by the  possibly empty  sequence of elements generated by enumerating the JAR files in the named directory  For example  if the directory foo contains a jar  b jar  and c jar  then the class path foo   is expanded into foo a jar foo b jar foo c jar  and that string would be the value of the system property java class path  The CLASSPATH environment variable is not treated any differently from the -classpath  or -cp  command-line option  That is  wildcards are honored in all these cases  However  class path wildcards are not honored in the Class-Path jar-manifest header   Note  due to a known bug in java 8  the windows examples must use a backslash preceding entries with a trailing asterisk  https   bugs openjdk java net browse JDK-8131329

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If you really need to specify all the  jar files dynamically you could use shell scripts  or Apache Ant  There s a commons project called Commons Launcher which basically lets you specify your startup script as an ant build file  if you see what I mean    Then  you can specify something like    lt path id  base class path  gt       lt pathelement path    resources dir    gt       lt fileset dir    extensions dir   includes    jar    gt       lt fileset dir    lib dir   includes    jar   gt   lt  path gt    In your launch build file  which will launch your application with the correct classpath

User · Answer

If you really need to specify all the  jar files dynamically you could use shell scripts  or Apache Ant  There s a commons project called Commons Launcher which basically lets you specify your startup script as an ant build file  if you see what I mean    Then  you can specify something like    lt path id  base class path  gt       lt pathelement path    resources dir    gt       lt fileset dir    extensions dir   includes    jar    gt       lt fileset dir    lib dir   includes    jar   gt   lt  path gt    In your launch build file  which will launch your application with the correct classpath

User · Answer

Windows    java -cp file jar dir   my app ClassName   Linux    java -cp file jar dir   my app ClassName   Remind  - Windows path separator is   - Linux path separator is   - In Windows if cp argument does not contains white space  the  quotes  is optional

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class from wepapp      gt  mvn clean install     gt  java -cp  webapp target webapp-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT WEB-INF lib tool-jar-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT jar webapp target webapp-1 17 0-SNAPSHOT WEB-INF lib    com xx xx util EncryptorUtils param1 param2

User · Answer

We get around this problem by deploying a main jar file myapp jar which contains a manifest  Manifest mf  file specifying a classpath with the other required jars  which are then deployed alongside it  In this case  you only need to declare java -jar myapp jar when running the code    So if you deploy the main jar into some directory  and then put the dependent jars into a lib folder beneath that  the manifest looks like   Manifest-Version  1 0 Implementation-Title  myapp Implementation-Version  1 0 1 Class-Path  lib dep1 jar lib dep2 jar   NB  this is platform-independent - we can use the same jars to launch on a UNIX server or on a Windows PC

User · Answer

Please note that wildcard expansion is broken for Java 7 on Windows.

Check out this StackOverflow issue for more information.

The workaround is to put a semicolon right after the wildcard. java -cp "somewhere/*;"

User · Answer

Think of a jar file as the root of a directory structure  Yes  you need to add them all separately

User · Answer

We get around this problem by deploying a main jar file myapp jar which contains a manifest  Manifest mf  file specifying a classpath with the other required jars  which are then deployed alongside it  In this case  you only need to declare java -jar myapp jar when running the code    So if you deploy the main jar into some directory  and then put the dependent jars into a lib folder beneath that  the manifest looks like   Manifest-Version  1 0 Implementation-Title  myapp Implementation-Version  1 0 1 Class-Path  lib dep1 jar lib dep2 jar   NB  this is platform-independent - we can use the same jars to launch on a UNIX server or on a Windows PC

User · Answer

If you are using Java 6  then you can use wildcards in the classpath   Now it is possible to use wildcards in classpath definition   javac -cp libs   -verbose -encoding UTF-8 src mypackage   java  -d build classes   Ref  http   www rekk de bloggy 2008 add-all-jars-in-a-directory-to-classpath-with-java-se-6-using-wildcards

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Think of a jar file as the root of a directory structure  Yes  you need to add them all separately

User · Answer

Using Java 6 or later  the classpath option supports wildcards  Note the following   Use straight quotes   quot   Use    not   jar  Windows  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  Unix  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  This is similar to Windows  but uses   instead of    If you cannot use wildcards  bash allows the following syntax  where lib is the directory containing all the Java archive files    java -cp  quot   printf  s  lib   jar  quot    Note that using a classpath is incompatible with the -jar option  See also  Execute jar file with multiple classpath libraries from command prompt  Understanding Wildcards From the Classpath document   Class path entries can contain the basename wildcard character    which is considered equivalent to specifying a list of all the files in the directory with the extension  jar or  JAR  For example  the class path entry foo   specifies all JAR files in the directory named foo  A classpath entry consisting simply of   expands to a list of all the jar files in the current directory  A class path entry that contains   will not match class files  To match both classes and JAR files in a single directory foo  use either foo foo   or foo   foo  The order chosen determines whether the classes and resources in foo are loaded before JAR files in foo  or vice versa  Subdirectories are not searched recursively  For example  foo   looks for JAR files only in foo  not in foo bar  foo baz  etc  The order in which the JAR files in a directory are enumerated in the expanded class path is not specified and may vary from platform to platform and even from moment to moment on the same machine  A well-constructed application should not depend upon any particular order  If a specific order is required then the JAR files can be enumerated explicitly in the class path  Expansion of wildcards is done early  prior to the invocation of a program s main method  rather than late  during the class-loading process itself  Each element of the input class path containing a wildcard is replaced by the  possibly empty  sequence of elements generated by enumerating the JAR files in the named directory  For example  if the directory foo contains a jar  b jar  and c jar  then the class path foo   is expanded into foo a jar foo b jar foo c jar  and that string would be the value of the system property java class path  The CLASSPATH environment variable is not treated any differently from the -classpath  or -cp  command-line option  That is  wildcards are honored in all these cases  However  class path wildcards are not honored in the Class-Path jar-manifest header   Note  due to a known bug in java 8  the windows examples must use a backslash preceding entries with a trailing asterisk  https   bugs openjdk java net browse JDK-8131329

User · Answer

We get around this problem by deploying a main jar file myapp jar which contains a manifest  Manifest mf  file specifying a classpath with the other required jars  which are then deployed alongside it  In this case  you only need to declare java -jar myapp jar when running the code    So if you deploy the main jar into some directory  and then put the dependent jars into a lib folder beneath that  the manifest looks like   Manifest-Version  1 0 Implementation-Title  myapp Implementation-Version  1 0 1 Class-Path  lib dep1 jar lib dep2 jar   NB  this is platform-independent - we can use the same jars to launch on a UNIX server or on a Windows PC

User · Answer

Under Windows this works  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  and this does not work  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   jar quot  my package MainClass  Notice the   jar  so the   wildcard should be used alone   On Linux  the following works  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  The separators are colons instead of semicolons

User · Answer

You need to add them all separately   Alternatively  if you really need to just specify a directory  you can unjar everything into one dir and add that to your classpath   I don t recommend this approach however as you risk bizarre problems in classpath versioning and unmanagability

User · Answer

You need to add them all separately   Alternatively  if you really need to just specify a directory  you can unjar everything into one dir and add that to your classpath   I don t recommend this approach however as you risk bizarre problems in classpath versioning and unmanagability

User · Answer

Set the classpath in a way suitable multiple jars and current directory s class files    CLASSPATH   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib ojdbc6 jar   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib ojdbc14 jar   ORACLE HOME  jdbc lib nls charset12 jar   CLASSPATH  CLASSPATH  export home gs806e tops jconn2 jar    export CLASSPATH

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Short Form  If your main is within a jar  you ll probably need an additional  -jar pathTo yourJar YourJarsName jar    explicitly declared to get it working  even though  YourJarsName jar  was on the classpath   or  expressed to answer the original question that was asked 5 years ago  you don t need to redeclare each jar explicitly  but does seem  even with java6 you need to redeclare your own jar          Long Form    I ve made this explicit to the point that I hope even interlopers to java can make use of this    Like many here I m using eclipse to export jars   File- Export--  Runnable JAR File    There are three options on  Library handling  eclipse  Juno  offers   opt1   Extract required libraries into generated JAR  opt2   Package required libraries into generated JAR  opt3   Copy required libraries into a sub-folder next to the generated JAR    Typically I d use opt2  and opt1 was definitely breaking   however native code in one of the jars I m using I discovered breaks with the handy  jarinjar  trick that eclipse leverages when you choose that option  Even after realizing I needed opt3  and then finding this StackOverflow entry  it still took me some time to figure it out how to launch my main outside of eclipse  so here s what worked for me  as it s useful for others       If  you named your jar   fooBarTheJarFile jar   and all is set to export to the  dir        theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir      meaning the   Export destination  field will read      theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar     After you hit finish  you ll find eclipse then puts all the libraries into a folder named  fooBarTheJarFile lib  within that export directory  giving you something like    theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar01 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar02 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar03 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar04 jar     You can then launch from anywhere on your system with    java -classpath   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib    -jar   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar   package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    For Java Newbies    package path to the class with your main  is the declared package-path that you ll find at the top of the  TheClassWithYourMain java  file that contains the  main String   args        that you wish to run from outside java     The pitfall to notice  is that having  fooBarTheJarFile jar  within the list of jars on your declared classpath is not enough   You need to explicitly declare  -jar   and redeclare the location of that jar    e g  this breaks      java -classpath   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib     somepackages inside yourJar leadingToTheMain TheClassWithYourMain   restated with relative paths   cd  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir   BREAKS   java -cp  fooBarTheJarFile lib                                   package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain     BREAKS   java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib                                 package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    BREAKS   java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib      -jar                       package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    WORKS    java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib      -jar  fooBarTheJarFile jar package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain       using java version  1 6 0 27   via  OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM  on ubuntu 12 04

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Under Windows this works  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  and this does not work  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   jar quot  my package MainClass  Notice the   jar  so the   wildcard should be used alone   On Linux  the following works  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  The separators are colons instead of semicolons

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Short Form  If your main is within a jar  you ll probably need an additional  -jar pathTo yourJar YourJarsName jar    explicitly declared to get it working  even though  YourJarsName jar  was on the classpath   or  expressed to answer the original question that was asked 5 years ago  you don t need to redeclare each jar explicitly  but does seem  even with java6 you need to redeclare your own jar          Long Form    I ve made this explicit to the point that I hope even interlopers to java can make use of this    Like many here I m using eclipse to export jars   File- Export--  Runnable JAR File    There are three options on  Library handling  eclipse  Juno  offers   opt1   Extract required libraries into generated JAR  opt2   Package required libraries into generated JAR  opt3   Copy required libraries into a sub-folder next to the generated JAR    Typically I d use opt2  and opt1 was definitely breaking   however native code in one of the jars I m using I discovered breaks with the handy  jarinjar  trick that eclipse leverages when you choose that option  Even after realizing I needed opt3  and then finding this StackOverflow entry  it still took me some time to figure it out how to launch my main outside of eclipse  so here s what worked for me  as it s useful for others       If  you named your jar   fooBarTheJarFile jar   and all is set to export to the  dir        theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir      meaning the   Export destination  field will read      theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar     After you hit finish  you ll find eclipse then puts all the libraries into a folder named  fooBarTheJarFile lib  within that export directory  giving you something like    theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar01 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar02 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar03 jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib SomeOtherJar04 jar     You can then launch from anywhere on your system with    java -classpath   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib    -jar   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar   package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    For Java Newbies    package path to the class with your main  is the declared package-path that you ll find at the top of the  TheClassWithYourMain java  file that contains the  main String   args        that you wish to run from outside java     The pitfall to notice  is that having  fooBarTheJarFile jar  within the list of jars on your declared classpath is not enough   You need to explicitly declare  -jar   and redeclare the location of that jar    e g  this breaks      java -classpath   theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile jar  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir fooBarTheJarFile lib     somepackages inside yourJar leadingToTheMain TheClassWithYourMain   restated with relative paths   cd  theFully qualifiedPath toYourChosenDir   BREAKS   java -cp  fooBarTheJarFile lib                                   package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain     BREAKS   java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib                                 package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    BREAKS   java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib      -jar                       package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain    WORKS    java -cp    fooBarTheJarFile lib      -jar  fooBarTheJarFile jar package path to the class with your main TheClassWithYourMain       using java version  1 6 0 27   via  OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM  on ubuntu 12 04

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Not a direct solution to being able to set    to -cp but I hope you could use the following script to ease the situation a bit for dynamic class-paths and lib directories    libDir2Scan4jars     test  cp     for j in  ls   libDir2Scan4jars    jar   do if     j           then cp  cp  j  fi  done  echo  cp  cut -c2-   cp   gt   tmpCP tmp  export tmpCLASSPATH  cat  tmpCP tmp   if     tmpCLASSPATH           then echo    echo  classpath set  you can now use    gt          java -cp   tmpCLASSPATH   echo    else echo    echo  Error please check libDir2Scan4jars path   echo    fi     Scripted for Linux  could have a similar one for windows too  If proper directory is provided as input to the  libDir2Scan4jars   the script will scan all the jars and create a classpath string and export it to a env variable  tmpCLASSPATH

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For me this works in windows    java -cp   lib     sample   For linux  java -cp   lib     sample   I am using Java 6

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macOS  current folder  For Java 13 on macOS Mojave     If all your  jar files are in the same folder  use cd to make that your current working directory  Verify with pwd    For the -classpath you must first list the JAR file for your app  Using a colon character   as a delimiter  append an asterisk   to get all other JAR files within the same folder  Lastly  pass the full package name of the class with your main method    For example  for an app in a JAR file named my app jar with a main method in a class named App in a package named com example  alongside some needed jars in the same folder   java -classpath my app jar   com example App

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The only way I know how is to do it individually  for example   setenv CLASSPATH  User username newfolder jarfile jar jarfile2 jar jarfile3 jar     Hope that helps

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My solution on Ubuntu 10 04 using java-sun 1 6 0 24 having all jars in  lib  directory   java -cp   lib   my main Class  If this fails  the following command should work  prints out all   jars in lib directory to the classpath param   java -cp   for i in lib   jar   do echo -n  i    done   my main Class

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You can try java -Djava ext dirs jarDirectory  http   docs oracle com javase 6 docs technotes guides extensions spec html  Directory for external jars when running java

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macOS  current folder  For Java 13 on macOS Mojave     If all your  jar files are in the same folder  use cd to make that your current working directory  Verify with pwd    For the -classpath you must first list the JAR file for your app  Using a colon character   as a delimiter  append an asterisk   to get all other JAR files within the same folder  Lastly  pass the full package name of the class with your main method    For example  for an app in a JAR file named my app jar with a main method in a class named App in a package named com example  alongside some needed jars in the same folder   java -classpath my app jar   com example App

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Using Java 6 or later  the classpath option supports wildcards  Note the following   Use straight quotes   quot   Use    not   jar  Windows  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  Unix  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  This is similar to Windows  but uses   instead of    If you cannot use wildcards  bash allows the following syntax  where lib is the directory containing all the Java archive files    java -cp  quot   printf  s  lib   jar  quot    Note that using a classpath is incompatible with the -jar option  See also  Execute jar file with multiple classpath libraries from command prompt  Understanding Wildcards From the Classpath document   Class path entries can contain the basename wildcard character    which is considered equivalent to specifying a list of all the files in the directory with the extension  jar or  JAR  For example  the class path entry foo   specifies all JAR files in the directory named foo  A classpath entry consisting simply of   expands to a list of all the jar files in the current directory  A class path entry that contains   will not match class files  To match both classes and JAR files in a single directory foo  use either foo foo   or foo   foo  The order chosen determines whether the classes and resources in foo are loaded before JAR files in foo  or vice versa  Subdirectories are not searched recursively  For example  foo   looks for JAR files only in foo  not in foo bar  foo baz  etc  The order in which the JAR files in a directory are enumerated in the expanded class path is not specified and may vary from platform to platform and even from moment to moment on the same machine  A well-constructed application should not depend upon any particular order  If a specific order is required then the JAR files can be enumerated explicitly in the class path  Expansion of wildcards is done early  prior to the invocation of a program s main method  rather than late  during the class-loading process itself  Each element of the input class path containing a wildcard is replaced by the  possibly empty  sequence of elements generated by enumerating the JAR files in the named directory  For example  if the directory foo contains a jar  b jar  and c jar  then the class path foo   is expanded into foo a jar foo b jar foo c jar  and that string would be the value of the system property java class path  The CLASSPATH environment variable is not treated any differently from the -classpath  or -cp  command-line option  That is  wildcards are honored in all these cases  However  class path wildcards are not honored in the Class-Path jar-manifest header   Note  due to a known bug in java 8  the windows examples must use a backslash preceding entries with a trailing asterisk  https   bugs openjdk java net browse JDK-8131329

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Short answer  java -classpath lib     my package Program  Oracle provides documentation on using wildcards in classpaths here for Java 6 and here for Java 7  under the section heading Understanding class path wildcards   As I write this  the two pages contain the same information   Here s a summary of the highlights    In general  to include all of the JARs in a given directory  you can use the wildcard    not   jar   The wildcard only matches JARs  not class files  to get all classes in a directory  just end the classpath entry at the directory name  The above two options can be combined to include all JAR and class files in a directory  and the usual classpath precedence rules apply  E g  -cp  classes  jars   The wildcard will not search for JARs in subdirectories  The above bullet points are true if you use the CLASSPATH system property or the -cp or -classpath command line flags  However  if you use the Class-Path JAR manifest header  as you might do with an ant build file   wildcards will not be honored    Yes  my first link is the same one provided in the top-scoring answer  which I have no hope of overtaking   but that answer doesn t provide much explanation beyond the link  Since that sort of behavior is discouraged on Stack Overflow these days  I thought I d expand on it

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I have multiple jars in a folder  The below command worked for me in JDK1 8 to include all jars present in the folder  Please note that to include in quotes if you have a space in the classpath  Windows  Compiling  javac -classpath  C  My Jars sdk lib    c  programs MyProgram java  Running  java -classpath  C  My Jars sdk lib   c  programs  MyProgram  Linux  Compiling  javac -classpath   home guestuser My Jars sdk lib    MyProgram java  Running  java -classpath   home guestuser My Jars sdk lib    home guestuser programs  MyProgram

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For windows quotes are required and   should be used as separator  e g    java -cp  target    target  dependency     my package Main

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Think of a jar file as the root of a directory structure  Yes  you need to add them all separately

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I have multiple jars in a folder  The below command worked for me in JDK1 8 to include all jars present in the folder  Please note that to include in quotes if you have a space in the classpath  Windows  Compiling  javac -classpath  C  My Jars sdk lib    c  programs MyProgram java  Running  java -classpath  C  My Jars sdk lib   c  programs  MyProgram  Linux  Compiling  javac -classpath   home guestuser My Jars sdk lib    MyProgram java  Running  java -classpath   home guestuser My Jars sdk lib    home guestuser programs  MyProgram

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To whom it may concern   I found this strange behaviour on Windows under an MSYS MinGW shell   Works     javac -cp    c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins    Reclaim java   Doesn t work     javac -cp  c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins    Reclaim java javac  invalid flag  c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins com comsol aco 1 0 0 jar Usage  javac  lt options gt   lt source files gt  use -help for a list of possible options   I am quite sure that the wildcard is not expanded by the shell  because e g     echo              Tried it with another program too  rather than the built-in echo  with the same result    I believe that it s javac which is trying to expand it  and it behaves differently whether there is a semicolon in the argument or not  First  it may be trying to expand all arguments that look like paths  And only then it would parse them  with -cp taking only the following token   Note that com comsol aco 1 0 0 jar is the second JAR in that directory   That s all a guess   This is     javac -version javac 1 7 0

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All the above solutions work great if you develop and run the Java application outside any IDE like Eclipse or Netbeans   If you are on Windows 7 and used Eclipse IDE for Development in Java  you might run into issues if using Command Prompt to run the class files built inside Eclipse   E g  Your source code in Eclipse is having the following package hierarchy  edu sjsu myapp Main java  You have json jar as an external dependency for the Main java  When you try running Main java from within Eclipse  it will run without any issues   But when you try running this using Command Prompt after compiling Main java in Eclipse  it will shoot some weird errors saying  ClassNotDef Error blah blah    I assume you are in the working directory of your source code     Use the following syntax to run it from command prompt       javac -cp    json jar  Main java     java -cp    json jar  edu sjsu myapp Main    Don t miss the   above    This is because you have placed the Main java inside the package edu sjsu myapp and java exe will look for the exact pattern   Hope it helps

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For me this works in windows    java -cp   lib     sample   For linux  java -cp   lib     sample   I am using Java 6

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Using Java 6 or later  the classpath option supports wildcards  Note the following   Use straight quotes   quot   Use    not   jar  Windows  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  Unix  java -cp  quot Test jar lib   quot  my package MainClass  This is similar to Windows  but uses   instead of    If you cannot use wildcards  bash allows the following syntax  where lib is the directory containing all the Java archive files    java -cp  quot   printf  s  lib   jar  quot    Note that using a classpath is incompatible with the -jar option  See also  Execute jar file with multiple classpath libraries from command prompt  Understanding Wildcards From the Classpath document   Class path entries can contain the basename wildcard character    which is considered equivalent to specifying a list of all the files in the directory with the extension  jar or  JAR  For example  the class path entry foo   specifies all JAR files in the directory named foo  A classpath entry consisting simply of   expands to a list of all the jar files in the current directory  A class path entry that contains   will not match class files  To match both classes and JAR files in a single directory foo  use either foo foo   or foo   foo  The order chosen determines whether the classes and resources in foo are loaded before JAR files in foo  or vice versa  Subdirectories are not searched recursively  For example  foo   looks for JAR files only in foo  not in foo bar  foo baz  etc  The order in which the JAR files in a directory are enumerated in the expanded class path is not specified and may vary from platform to platform and even from moment to moment on the same machine  A well-constructed application should not depend upon any particular order  If a specific order is required then the JAR files can be enumerated explicitly in the class path  Expansion of wildcards is done early  prior to the invocation of a program s main method  rather than late  during the class-loading process itself  Each element of the input class path containing a wildcard is replaced by the  possibly empty  sequence of elements generated by enumerating the JAR files in the named directory  For example  if the directory foo contains a jar  b jar  and c jar  then the class path foo   is expanded into foo a jar foo b jar foo c jar  and that string would be the value of the system property java class path  The CLASSPATH environment variable is not treated any differently from the -classpath  or -cp  command-line option  That is  wildcards are honored in all these cases  However  class path wildcards are not honored in the Class-Path jar-manifest header   Note  due to a known bug in java 8  the windows examples must use a backslash preceding entries with a trailing asterisk  https   bugs openjdk java net browse JDK-8131329

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The only way I know how is to do it individually  for example   setenv CLASSPATH  User username newfolder jarfile jar jarfile2 jar jarfile3 jar     Hope that helps

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If you really need to specify all the  jar files dynamically you could use shell scripts  or Apache Ant  There s a commons project called Commons Launcher which basically lets you specify your startup script as an ant build file  if you see what I mean    Then  you can specify something like    lt path id  base class path  gt       lt pathelement path    resources dir    gt       lt fileset dir    extensions dir   includes    jar    gt       lt fileset dir    lib dir   includes    jar   gt   lt  path gt    In your launch build file  which will launch your application with the correct classpath

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If you are using Java 6  then you can use wildcards in the classpath   Now it is possible to use wildcards in classpath definition   javac -cp libs   -verbose -encoding UTF-8 src mypackage   java  -d build classes   Ref  http   www rekk de bloggy 2008 add-all-jars-in-a-directory-to-classpath-with-java-se-6-using-wildcards

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To whom it may concern   I found this strange behaviour on Windows under an MSYS MinGW shell   Works     javac -cp    c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins    Reclaim java   Doesn t work     javac -cp  c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins    Reclaim java javac  invalid flag  c  Programs COMSOL44 plugins com comsol aco 1 0 0 jar Usage  javac  lt options gt   lt source files gt  use -help for a list of possible options   I am quite sure that the wildcard is not expanded by the shell  because e g     echo              Tried it with another program too  rather than the built-in echo  with the same result    I believe that it s javac which is trying to expand it  and it behaves differently whether there is a semicolon in the argument or not  First  it may be trying to expand all arguments that look like paths  And only then it would parse them  with -cp taking only the following token   Note that com comsol aco 1 0 0 jar is the second JAR in that directory   That s all a guess   This is     javac -version javac 1 7 0

[java] Including all the jars in a directory within the Java classpath

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