Differences between classpath and sourcepath options of javac

Question

I read the Sun documentation and a lot of posts on Stack Overflow, but I\'m still confused about the differences between the Java compiler options -cp and

Answer 1

 -classpath classpath

Set the user class path, overriding the user class path in the CLASSPATH environment variable. If neither CLASSPATH or -classpath is specified, the user class path consists of the current directory.

If the -sourcepath option is not specified, the user class path is searched for source files as well as class files.

-sourcepath sourcepath

Specify the source code path to search for class or interface definitions. As with the user class path, source path entries are separated by semicolons (;) and can be directories, JAR archives, or ZIP archives. If packages are used, the local path name within the directory or archive must reflect the package name.

Note that classes found through the classpath are subject to automatic recompilation if their sources are found.