Apache Commons CLI - Environment Setup

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In this chapter, we will learn about the local environment setup of Apache Commons CLI and how to set up the path of Commons CLI for Windows 2000/XP, Windows 95/98/ME etc. We will also understand about some popular java editors and how to download Commons CLI archive.

Local Environment Setup

If you are still willing to set up your environment for Java programming language, then this chapter will guide you on how to download and set up Java on your machine. Please follow the steps mentioned below to set up the environment.

Java SE is freely available from the link https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/oracle-java-archive-downloads.html. So you can download a version based on your operating system.

Follow the instructions to download Java and run the .exe to install Java on your machine. Once you have installed Java on your machine, you would need to set environment variables to point to correct installation directories.

Path for Windows 2000/XP

We are assuming that you have installed Java in c:\Program Files\java\jdk directory.

• Right-click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'.

• Click on the 'Environment variables' button under the 'Advanced' tab.

• Now, alter the 'Path' variable, so that it also contains the path to the Java executable. Example, if the path is currently set to 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32', then change your path to read 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32;c:\Program Files\java\jdk\bin'.

Path for Windows 95/98/ME

We are assuming that you have installed Java in c:\Program Files\java\jdk directory.

• Edit the 'C:\autoexec.bat' file and add the following line at the end − 'SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\java\jdk\bin'.

Path for Linux, UNIX, Solaris, FreeBSD

Environment variable PATH should be set to point, where the Java binaries have been installed. Refer to your shell documentation, if you have trouble doing this.

Example, if you use bash as your shell, then you would add the following line to the end of your '.bashrc: export PATH=/path/to/java:$PATH'

Popular Java Editors

To write your Java programs, you need a text editor. There are many sophisticated IDEs available in the market. But for now, you can consider one of the following −

• Notepad − On Windows machine you can use any simple text editor like Notepad (Recommended for this tutorial), TextPad.

• Netbeans − It is a Java IDE that is open-source and free which can be downloaded from www.netbeans.org/index.html.

• Eclipse − It is also a Java IDE developed by the eclipse open-source community and can be downloaded from www.eclipse.org.

Download Common CLI Archive

Download the latest version of Apache Common CLI jar file from commons-cli-1.4-bin.zip. At the time of writing this tutorial, we have downloaded commons-cli-1.4-bin.zip and copied it into C:\>Apache folder.

OS	Archive name
Windows	commons-cli-1.4-bin.zip
Linux	commons-cli-1.4-bin.tar.gz
Mac	commons-cli-1.4-bin.tar.gz

Apache Common CLI Environment

Set the APACHE_HOME environment variable to point to the base directory location where, Apache jar is stored on your machine. Assume that we have extracted commonscollections4-4.1-bin.zip in Apache folder on various Operating Systems as follows −

OS	Output
Windows	Set the environment variable APACHE_HOME to C:\Apache
Linux	export APACHE_HOME = /usr/local/Apache
Mac	export APACHE_HOME = /Library/Apache

CLASSPATH Variable

Set the CLASSPATH environment variable to point to the Common CLI jar location. Assume that you have stored commons-cli-1.4.jar in Apache folder on various Operating Systems as follows −

OS	Output
Windows	Stores AIML bots</Set the environment variable CLASSPATH to %CLASSPATH%;%APACHE_HOME%\commons-cli-1.4.jar;.;
Linux	export CLASSPATH = $CLASSPATH:$APACHE_HOME/commons-cli-1.4.jar:.
Mac	export CLASSPATH = $CLASSPATH:$APACHE_HOME/commons-cli-1.4.jar:.