This section describes the following environment variables:
CLASSPATH
The syntactical structure of the CLASSPATH environment variable corresponds to that of the PATH environment variable and describes the directories and JAR and ZIP archives in which the user classes are searched for.
When using the java commands and tools, users must only define this environment variable so that their own classes are found. If the environment variable is not set, the search path for user classes is set to the current directory (except in the case of appletviewer).
Alternatively, the -classpath option can also be used for the JAVA interpreters to define the path to the user classes.
JAVA_HOME
The environment variable JAVA_HOME describes the installation location of the JAVA runtime environment. It is only needed for application programs which access JAVA using the invocation API.
For a standard installation JAVA_HOME is to be set to /opt/java/jdk-9.0.4. Refer to the Release Notice for the currently valid name
The Java tools use their own mechanisms to determine their installation location. This environment variable should thus no be set if the Java Interpreter and the other Java tools are to be used.
JENV_VMTYPE
For user programs which utilize the invocation API no interface exists to select the VM for processing. This environment variable can be used to request a special VM for such programs. The following values are permitted:
client
Selection of the HotSpot™ client VM
If the variable is not set, the default applies (see subsection "Options for selecting the HotSpot™ VM type" in section "java"). However, because only one VM implementation is currently available, this variable is not needed.
The Java tools do not use this environment variable but evaluate the corresponding command line options.
JENV_SYSHSI
The environment variable JENV_SYSHSI specifies the HSI variant to be used for the VM when calling the java command (see section "java"). The following values are possible:
s390
The S390 variant of JENV is used (if available).
x86
The X86 variant of JENV is used (if available).
If you don’t specify the variable, the default value is used, as desribed in section "Options for selecting the HSI variant". In case you explicitly specify the variant in the java command, this value precedes the environment variable.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH
The environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH describes the directories in which a search will be made for “Shared Objects” with the user’s native methods. In its syntactical structure it corresponds to the environment variable PATH.
Other mechanisms are used for the search for native methods of Java implementation. With applications that use the invocation API, they are found using JAVA_HOME for example.