CLASSPATH hassles....or is it???

I'm wondering whether its just me or if others have had trouble with this. I've searched the Interent and came up with complicated answer's. I'm trying to go through a JavaMail&James tutorial but I can't even set up the JavaMail API. I try to Set the CLASSPATH which seems to work because when I "echo %CLASSPATH" it comes back with the results that I input. Once I compile the program however the compiler tells me that: package javax.mail does not exist. I'm not sure whether its the setup problem or something else. I've placed the unziped folder of JavaMail into a folder called C:\JAMES_HOME\javamail-1.4ea. After this I added the mail.jar to the CLASSPATH like this: set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\JAMES_HOME\javamail-1.4ea\mail.jar;. I have two questions:
1)Is the JavaMail API setup in the CLASSPATH and can I use it like this?
2)Is the compile error connected to this problem?

Here is the code of the program:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.mail.*;
import javax.mail.internet.*;
 
public class MailClient
  extends Authenticator
{
  public static final int SHOW_MESSAGES = 1;
  public static final int CLEAR_MESSAGES = 2;
  public static final int SHOW_AND_CLEAR =
    SHOW_MESSAGES + CLEAR_MESSAGES;
  
  protected String from;
  protected Session session;
  protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
  
  public MailClient(String user, String host)
  {
    this(user, host, false);
  }
  
  public MailClient(String user, String host, boolean debug)
  {
    from = user + '@' + host;
    authentication = new PasswordAuthentication(user, user);
    Properties props = new Properties();
    props.put("mail.user", user);
    props.put("mail.host", host);
    props.put("mail.debug", debug ? "true" : "false");
    props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
    props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
    session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
  }
  
  public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
  {
    return authentication;
  }
  
  public void sendMessage(
    String to, String subject, String content)
      throws MessagingException
  {
    System.out.println("SENDING message from " + from + " to " + to);
    System.out.println();
    MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session);
    msg.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, to);
    msg.setSubject(subject);
    msg.setText(content);
    Transport.send(msg);
  }
  
  public void checkInbox(int mode)
    throws MessagingException, IOException
  {
    if (mode == 0) return;
    boolean show = (mode & SHOW_MESSAGES) > 0;
    boolean clear = (mode & CLEAR_MESSAGES) > 0;
    String action =
      (show ? "Show" : "") +
      (show && clear ? " and " : "") +
      (clear ? "Clear" : "");
    System.out.println(action + " INBOX for " + from);
    Store store = session.getStore();
    store.connect();
    Folder root = store.getDefaultFolder();
    Folder inbox = root.getFolder("inbox");
    inbox.open(Folder.READ_WRITE);
    Message[] msgs = inbox.getMessages();
    if (msgs.length == 0 && show)
    {
      System.out.println("No messages in inbox");
    }
    for (int i = 0; i < msgs.length; i++)
    {
      MimeMessage msg = (MimeMessage)msgs[i];
      if (show)
      {
        System.out.println("    From: " + msg.getFrom()[0]);
        System.out.println(" Subject: " + msg.getSubject());
        System.out.println(" Content: " + msg.getContent());
      }
      if (clear)
      {
        msg.setFlag(Flags.Flag.DELETED, true);
      }
    }
    inbox.close(true);
    store.close();
    System.out.println();
  }
}

[ January 25, 2006: Message edited by: Hilton Meyer ]

I solved the problem by copying the jar's into the jre/ext file. I would still like to know if there are other solutions.

Hilton,
You should not have to place external jars in this directory.

What command are you using to compile the source ?

I tried to use the javac command but the system said that this was not recognised. After reading a bit further in the article they suggested copying the jar's into the folder. It's no the best solution but it solved the problem for now. I would still like a solution so that in future I would not run into this problem.

Hi Pal,
If u get a message saying command not recognised when u type javac
then u have to set the PATH variable to the bin folder of java.

Letz say u have java in C:

then use set path=c:\j2sdk1.4.2\bin;.;%path%

After this set the classpath to the jars and try compiling.It should work

Thanks to evryone,

I fixed the problem by set the variables permanently in the Enviroment Variables in System Settings. Evrytime I was setting the paths up they would work but once I closed the command prompt window they would be reset to null. I'm not sure if I was doing it incorrectly but now they are permanently set up so there's no more hassles.

Thank you very much

It's not that you were doing incorrectly. However, you were not doing it permanently.

It's good to hear that you got it working. Good luck with your programming project.

Layne

When you use SET in a command prompt it only affects that session.

Originally posted by Hilton Meyer:
I solved the problem by copying the jar's into the jre/ext file. I would still like to know if there are other solutions.

I work on a J2SE implementation for my day job. A colleague recently proclaimed "do not put *anything* in jre/lib/ext unless you *really* know what you are doing". This is extremely useful advice - the amount of issues I have seen...

In any case, sounds to me like you simply need to use the -classpath switch.

A colleague recently proclaimed "do not put *anything* in jre/lib/ext unless you *really* know what you are doing".

I had some problems with placing jar here(jre/lib/ext). When I was learning JNDI I placed certain jars in ext but still I had to include them to classpath to get it working.

File System Service Provider for the
Java Naming and Directory InterfaceTM (JNDI) 1.2
Optional Package

Software Installation

If you are installing the file system provider as an installed extension, copy fscontext.jar and providerutil.jar from the lib directory to the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext directory

I like to know why didn't the JRE pick those jar files.