Receiving error "Could not find the main class"

[Kalpesh]

I have recently started learning Java...and I wrote first code of mine as below:
[Code]
public class Kalpesh
{
public static void main (String args[])
{
System.out.println("Kalpesh");
}
}

I also have set classpath and path variables correctly. The program compiles fine using command line:
javac C:\Kalpesh.java

But on executing, I receive below error:
java C:\Kalpesh

Error is displayed as:

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_23\bin>java C:\Kalpesh
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: C:\Kalpesh
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: C:\Kalpesh
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java: 202)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.j ava:190)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:3 07)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launche r.java:301)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:2 48)
Could not find the main class: C:\Kalpesh. Program will exit.

I tried using java -cp . Kalpesh command as well but still receiving same error. Can someone help me out?

[pbrockway2]

The java executable takes a class name as an argument - not a filename like the javac executable. So it doesn't really make sense to say

java C:\Kalpesh

The usual way of running the program is

java -cp . Kalpesh

You have tried this, but there are a few things you can check.

(1) The command must be issued from the directory containing Kalpesh.class
(2) The file Kalpesh.class must really be present in that directory. Ie the compilation must have been sucessful. Check this using the dir command
(3) The name of the class must really be Kalpesh. If the class belongs to a package then both the name of the class and the location where the command should be run will be different.
(4) The Kalpesh class must have a well defined "entry point". If you make a mistake in how you declare the main() method there will be a problem. If you are unsure about this, post the Kalpesh.java code

[Kalpesh]

Hey....
The issue is resolved...
You were correct that I needed to issue 'Java' command from the directory where my .class file resides. I was receiving error saying 'java is not recognized command....

I then set 'Path' variable to the directory containing .class file and the issue got resolved..

Thanks a lot for help..!!!