Annoying Environment Variable

[Kevin Simonson]

About two months ago I was having some problem with my code and a co-worker solved the problem by having me set environment variable JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS to value "-Dfile.encoding=UTF8". Now, ever since I made that change, every time I compile a Java file, and every time I run a Java class, the operating system, before it does anything else, prints out "Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8". For example, I have two simple Java files:

import java.io.PrintStream;

public class HelloWorld
{
  private static final PrintStream SY_O = System.out;

  public static void main ( String[] arguments)
  {
    SY_O.println( "Hello world!");
  }
}

and

public class Empty
{
  public static void main ( String[] arguments)
  {
  }
}

and when I compile and run them I get:

C:\K\Java\Misc>j7c HelloWorld.java
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

C:\K\Java\Misc>j7c Empty.java
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

C:\K\Java\Misc>j7 HelloWorld
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8
Hello world!

C:\K\Java\Misc>j7 Empty
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

Does anyone know any way to turn this off so it doesn't keep printing this line out? I want to keep the environment variable set; I just don't want it to keep printing this line out.

Kevin S

[Jaikiran Pai]

What are those j7c and j7 commands? Those look like custom scripts to compile and run Java (perhaps using Java 7). I guess those custom scripts are the ones printing out that output. So you might have to open them up in a text editor and see what they are doing.

[Kevin Simonson]

Jaikiran Pai wrote:What are those j7c and j7 commands? Those look like custom scripts to compile and run Java (perhaps using Java 7). I guess those custom scripts are the ones printing out that output. So you might have to open them up in a text editor and see what they are doing.

They are just aliases to Java 7 javac and java respectively. When I try those two commands I get the same results:

C:\K\Java\Misc>javac HelloWorld.java
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

C:\K\Java\Misc>javac Empty.java
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

C:\K\Java\Misc>java HelloWorld
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8
Hello world!

C:\K\Java\Misc>java Empty
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

C:\K\Java\Misc>

[Tony Docherty]

Have you tried removing the environment variable and using the -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 switch directly when running javac ie

javac -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 HelloWorld.java

[Kevin Simonson]

Tony Docherty wrote:Have you tried removing the environment variable and using the -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 switch directly when running javac ie

javac -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 HelloWorld.java

I haven't tried that yet. The problem that setting the environment variable solved was with code in IntelliJ. How do I set up IntelliJ so that when I run a program it does it with "javac -Dfile.encoding=UTF8"? I'm hesitant to change the environment variable until I know changing it won't break my IntelliJ builds.

Kevin S

[Tony Docherty]

I don't use IntelliJ so I can't answer that but there almost certainly is way to set the compiler arguments - have you tried looking in the help file?

[Jaikiran Pai]

Kevin Simonson wrote:How do I set up IntelliJ so that when I run a program it does it with "javac -Dfile.encoding=UTF8"? I'm hesitant to change the environment variable until I know changing it won't break my IntelliJ builds.

Kevin S

File -> Settings -> Compiler -> Java Compiler. And then on the right side pane, there's a "Additional command line parameters" where you can add this -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

[Kevin Simonson]

Jaikiran Pai wrote:

Kevin Simonson wrote:How do I set up IntelliJ so that when I run a program it does it with "javac -Dfile.encoding=UTF8"? I'm hesitant to change the environment variable until I know changing it won't break my IntelliJ builds.

File -> Settings -> Compiler -> Java Compiler. And then on the right side pane, there's a "Additional command line parameters" where you can add this -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

Thanks! I modified IntelliJ as you indicated and removed the environment variable, and that solved the problem.