Builds failing after upgrading to Java7, Missing Tools.jar and bad class versions

Question

I recently upgraded to Java7 on my Macbook Pro. I downloaded the JDK (not the JRE).

» javac version
javac 1.7.0_17

» echo $JAVA_HOME    
/Library/Java/Java         


        

Answer 1

The correct way to set JAVA_HOME on MacOS X is to use:

[user@ip ~]$ export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.7)
[user@ip ~]$ echo $JAVA_HOME 
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home

Your java installation is broken if, after doing this, $JAVA_HOME/lib does not contain a tools.jar.

Tip: I have these two aliases specified in my ~/.bash_profile:

alias java6="export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.6)"  
alias java7="export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.7)"

Placing jars in /Library/Java/Extensions is equivalent to putting them in the global classpath and is rarely a good idea.