Learning Java

Chapter 3. Tools of the Trade

You have many options for Java development environments, from the traditional text-editor-and-command-line environment to IDEs like WebGain’s Visual Café, Inprise’s JBuilder, Tek-Tools’ KAWA, or Sun’s Forte for Java. The examples in this book were developed using the Solaris and Windows versions of the Java Software Development Kit (SDK), so we will describe those tools here. When we refer to the compiler or interpreter, we’ll be referring to the command-line versions of these tools, so the book is decidedly biased toward those of you who are working in a Unix or DOS-like environment with a shell and filesystem. However, the basic features we’ll be describing for Sun’s Java interpreter and compiler should be applicable to other Java environments as well.

In this chapter, we’ll describe the tools you’ll need to compile and run Java applications. The last part of the chapter discusses how to pack Java class files into Java archives ( JAR files). Chapter 20, describes the ability to “sign” classes within a JAR file, and to give greater privileges to classes with a signature that you trust.

The Java Interpreter

A Java interpreter is software that implements the Java virtual machine and runs Java applications. It can be a standalone application like the SDK’s java program, or part of a larger application like the Netscape Navigator web browser. It’s likely that the interpreter itself is written in a native, compiled language for your particular platform. ...