DZone
Java Zone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
  • Refcardz
  • Trend Reports
  • Webinars
  • Zones
  • |
    • Agile
    • AI
    • Big Data
    • Cloud
    • Database
    • DevOps
    • Integration
    • IoT
    • Java
    • Microservices
    • Open Source
    • Performance
    • Security
    • Web Dev
DZone > Java Zone > Java: Finding/Setting JDK/$JAVA_HOME on Mac OS X

Java: Finding/Setting JDK/$JAVA_HOME on Mac OS X

Mark Needham user avatar by
Mark Needham
·
Jun. 17, 13 · Java Zone · Interview
Like (2)
Save
Tweet
100.00K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

As long as I’ve been using a Mac I always understood that if you needed to set $JAVA_HOME for any program, it should be set to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK.

On my machine this points to the 1.6 JDK:

$ ls -alh /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK -> /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents

This was a bit surprising to me since I’ve actually got Java 7 installed on the machine as well so I’d assumed the symlink would have been changed:

$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_09"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_09-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.5-b02, mixed mode)

Andres and I were looking at something around this yesterday and wanted to set $JAVA_HOME to the location of the 1.7 JDK on the system if it had been installed.

We eventually came across the following article which explains that you can use the /usr/libexec/java_homecommand line tool to do this.

For example, if we want to find where the 1.7 JDK is we could run the following:

$ /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_09.jdk/Contents/Home

And if we want 1.6 the following does the trick:

$ /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6
/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

We can also list all the JVMs installed on the machine:

$ /usr/libexec/java_home  -V
Matching Java Virtual Machines (3):
    1.7.0_09, x86_64:"Java SE 7"/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_09.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.6.0_45-b06-451, x86_64:"Java SE 6"/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.6.0_45-b06-451, i386:"Java SE 6"/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
 
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_09.jdk/Contents/Home

I’m not sure how I’ve never come across this command before but it seems pretty neat.

Java (programming language) Mac OS X

Published at DZone with permission of Mark Needham, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • How to Utilize Python Machine Learning Models
  • Creating a Spring Boot Project With Eclipse and Maven
  • Data Pipelines for Engineered Decision Intelligence
  • Augmented Analytics: The Future of Business Intelligence

Comments

Java Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • MVB Program
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends:

DZone.com is powered by 

AnswerHub logo