Java environment variables, CLASSPATH vs. CLASS_PATH?

Question

Of course the CLASSPATH form (non underscore version) is what people use now.

But I thought it used to also accept CLASS_PATH, maybe way back in the early 2000's?

I've Google'd around but haven't seen this answered. Google has trouble with this type of search, given the abundance of classpath, class and path in relation to Java. There are some older posts showing it as CLASS_PATH, and the one person who actually asked about the two versions didn't get a real answer on that board.

I was also wondering if maybe it was specific to one old JVM variant, or maybe to an early DOS / Windows port?

Obviously not a high priority, but was curious if anybody else remembered this, and whether there was ever any "official" support (or withdrawal) for it.

Thanks, Mark

Løkling · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-21 20:51:54Z

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You got me curious too - I found one reference googling "CLASS_PATH Gosling", the java faq in version 0.9.7. I can faintly remember (or I´m imagining) using it... http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/java/javafaq.html#xtocid558364

answered Nov 21, 2011 at 20:51

Løkling

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Mark Bennett Over a year ago

Thanks for the link! This documents that at least as of January 26, 1996 in a Java FAQ sent to the news groups comp.lang.java, alt.www.hotjava,alt.answers,comp.answers and news.answers they were using CLASS_PATH, with an underscore. I guess the only question left is when it officially changed.

ziesemer · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-21 20:48:03Z

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Searching on Google with quotes around CLASS_PATH ("CLASS_PATH") will certainly help your searches for this. That said, I've never seen this - except in some batch files used to start programs which passed this to java's command line argument.

answered Nov 21, 2011 at 20:48

ziesemer

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2 Comments

Mark Bennett Over a year ago

Sadly Google isn't as good about double quotes as it used to be. Actually I complained about this last weekend, though not related to the classpath search.

Mark Bennett Over a year ago

In this case Google does give different results using quotes, though still not helpful. I find either folks using the _ version, which seems fine, or references to a Java field called CLASS_PATH, but it's not the same thing.

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