javac "cannot find symbol" error with command line

Question

I have two classes Owning and OwningAccessor. The files are in the same directory.

public class Owning {
    String _name = "";
    public void printBanner()
    {
    }
    public void printOwning(double amount)
    {
        printBanner();

        //print details
        System.out.println("name:" + _name);
        System.out.println("amount:" + amount);
    }
}


public class OwningAccessor {
    public void access()
    {
        Owning o = new Owning();
        o.printOwning(500);
    }
}

When I tried to compile OwningAccessor with javac -cp . OwningAccessor.java, I got compilation error.

symbol  : class Owning
location: class smcho.OwningAccessor
        Owning o = new Owning();
        ^
OwningAccessor.java:6: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class Owning
location: class smcho.OwningAccessor
        Owning o = new Owning();
                   ^

What's wrong with this? The code compiles fine under eclipse IDE.

Pouliot

are they in the same directory? Show your source path directory structure – Scarf

They are in the same directory. – Pouliot

No repro, works here. Does it work if you first compile Owning.java? – Brennabrennan

Don't you need a this in there somewhere? – Penurious

@Daniel: No, it doesn't work even I compile the Owning.java to get class file. – Pouliot

And what if you remove the -cp .? Wouldn't be needed for files in the current directory anyway. – Brennabrennan

@Daniel : Same error without -cp .. – Pouliot

Answer 1

Ok, let's suppose you have the code distributed in files as follows

myproject
├── out
└── src
    ├── OwningAccessor.java
    └── Owning.java

Go to your command prompt, and change directory to myproject. Once there issue the following command:

javac -d out -sourcepath src src/OwningAccessor.java

I just tested it and it works just fine. Your compiled classes will be located in the out folder:

.
├── out
│   ├── OwningAccessor.class
│   └── Owning.class
└── src
    ├── OwningAccessor.java
    └── Owning.java

Compiling one class will trigger the compilation of all other dependent classes. The compiler will automatically look for them in the src folder.

Quent

this just complies the program, i wonder why I am not getting output of systme.out.print in CMD ? – Vineyard

Best way is to create a jar it will take care of all this and is fairly simple. – Sup

Answer 2

Make sure you compile both Owning.java and OwningAccessor.java, like so:

javac -cp . Owning.java OwningAccessor.java

Eclipse compiles all necessary files for you, which is why does work there.

Gimcrack

Doesn't java figure out dependencies on its own? – Scarf

It does if you use the -sourcepath flag in your compiler – Quent

Sourcepath should do the trick, unfortunately I cannot test it as javac on my machine crashes with an ACCESS_VIOLATION on anything I try to compile... – Gimcrack

@Kninnug: -sourcepath doesn't work. I don't see reason why compilation all the source at once works whereas one by one does not. – Pouliot

Well, like I said, I can't test it right now (except in Eclipse, which is what we don't want). But apparently javac doesn't look for the necessary files by itself. You could also enter javac -cp . *.java which should compile all the .java files in that directory. – Gimcrack

Answer 3

Try to make a correct sourcepath example:

javac -d temp -sourcepath c:\awork\JavaProjects\singleton\src\ c:\JavaProjects\singleton\src\com\company\MySingleton.java

javac -d temp -sourcepath c:\awork\JavaProjects\singleton\src\ c:\JavaProjects\singleton\src\com\company\Main.java

In "temp" we alocate resources and with -sourcepath indicate where are the .java files.

Twirl

Answer 4

So, in a directory named D:\Automation there is a file Demo.java throwing this error, in cmd while you are in D:\Automation, you need to : - 1) cd.. //will pull you out from Automation directory. In D:> 2) javac Automation\Demo.java

this will compile your file - Demo.java

Abhorrence