Importing a Custom Class

[jfredrickson]

I downloaded a custom class and would like to use it in my program, but I can't figure out how to import it. It came as a packaged jar file. Where do I place this file, and what is the correct syntax for importing custom classes like this?

Thanks.

[JavaBean]

You should find out what package those classes are in. If this is not written somewhere else then open the jar file with winrar/winzip. (Or extract it with jar command line tool comes with JDK)

Check which directory is your class in. That will directly be the package name!

For example if the classes you want to use is in org/mypackage/anotherone, then you whould import those classes from your java file like this:

import org.mypackage.anotherone.*;

This will import the classes in org.mypackage.anotherone package.

Quote:

Where do I place this file

You need to add this JAR to your classpath.

If you are using an IDE and already have a project, you can add this jar to the project's classpath. This is generally available in your project's properties (In NetBeans, right click on your project, select Properties and add the JAR to your classpath).

If you don't use an IDE, you have two choices left. One of them is to add command line parameters to your java and javac commands. Write "javac -help". You will see a CLASSPATH option there. So you need to specify the path of your JAR file as the classpath. I recommend you to place the jar to the same place of your java class and use "java -cp . yourClass.java" simply.

And alternatively, although it is not recommended, you can place this jar to your jre's lib/ext directory. Since that place is automatically added to your classpath variable, your JAR will be find if you place it there.

Check this resource for more detailed information:

Classpath (Java - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[jfredrickson]

Sorry, I'm a bit new to importing classes. I put the jar file into a folder and created a test.java file in the same folder. Then I put the following code in test.java:

Code:

import java.lang.ocr.jar;

class ragnar
{  
        public static void main(String args[])
        {
           System.out.println("It's working!");
        }
}

The documentation for the OCR class said that it is a subclass of java.lang.Object, but I don't think I got that import statement correct. I tried executing it like this:

Code:

java -cp . test.java

But it returned the following error:

Code:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: test/java

I am not using an IDE, and I'd like to be able to just do this all from the terminal (I'm on Mac OSX) if that's possible. What else can I try to get this to work?

[JavaBean]

Ok. this is more clear now. And your setting is the most simplest one which will simplify solving your problem.

You only need to find the package of the class.

As i said before, you need to extract jar file and detect the structure. In the command line run the following command in the folder where you have the jar.

Code:

jar -xvf *.jar

And then tell me the structure of the extracted folders (Where are the classes? Which directories and sub-directories are created?)!