envirnoment variable set on terminal but System.getenv returns null. java problems

Question

I've changed my ~/.bashrc file. I've changed /etc/environment. I've done export WNHOME="/usr/local/WordNet-3.0". I tried everything here and more. (I'm running arch linux, in case that's of any consequence).

I think the environment variable must be set on my machine, if I check it with echo $WNHOME I get the correct result.

However when I call System.out.println(System.getenv("WNHOME")); in my java program I keep getting null, what could be the reason for this?

The output looks like this:

Path is 'null/dict'
null
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: Dictionary directory does not exist: null/dict
at edu.mit.jwi.data.FileProvider.open(FileProvider.java:306)
at edu.mit.jwi.DataSourceDictionary.open(DataSourceDictionary.java:92)
at edu.mit.jwi.CachingDictionary.open(CachingDictionary.java:133)
at MITJavaWordNetInterface.main(MITJavaWordNetInterface.java:30)

The code looks like this:

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
{
    // construct the URL to the Wordnet dictionary directory
    String wnhome = System.getenv("WNHOME");
    String path = wnhome + File.separator + "dict";
    System.out.println("Path is '" + path + "'"); 

    URL url = new URL ("file", null , path );
    System.out.println(System.getenv("WNHOME"));
    //final URL url = Paths.get(wnhome, "dict").toUri().toURL();

    // construct the dictionary object and open it
    IDictionary dict = new Dictionary ( url ) ;
    dict . open () ;

    // look up first sense of the word "dog "
    IIndexWord idxWord = dict . getIndexWord ("dog", POS . NOUN ) ;
    IWordID wordID = idxWord . getWordIDs () . get (0) ;
    IWord word = dict . getWord ( wordID ) ;
    System . out . println ("Id = " + wordID ) ;
    System . out . println (" Lemma = " + word . getLemma () ) ;
    System . out . println (" Gloss = " + word . getSynset () . getGloss () ) ;      
}

Is this variable set in the environment you run the Java program in? — , Jan 29 '15 at 08:42
How do you run the Java program? Do you run it from a shell where `WNHOME` is set? — , Jan 29 '15 at 08:44
I've been running it from eclipse, which i don't run from a terminal i run it using this 'wildcard key' + 'r' and then run it like that — smatthewenglish, Jan 29 '15 at 08:45
Genius! i can run it from the terminal. which is a nice hack but.. sort of ... unsatisfying? — smatthewenglish, Jan 29 '15 at 08:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 29 '15 at 08:47

1

Set the environment variable in ~/.profile file

If we set the environment variable in ~/.bashrc then those variable are accessable only to the application started from shell. For desktop application to access the environment variable set it into ~/.profile file.

edited Jan 29 '15 at 08:47

answered Jan 29 '15 at 08:44

Rahul

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still doesn't work. java shows it as null. it's in eclipse. but i 'cleaned' the projects, and tried and still no. – smatthewenglish Jan 29 '15 at 08:46
Try after restarting the eclipse. – Rahul Jan 29 '15 at 08:48
have you sourced the .profile after making changes? After making changes in .profile use `source ~/.profile` – Rahul Jan 29 '15 at 08:52
1

yeah, did that. still nothing – smatthewenglish Jan 29 '15 at 08:54
@LutzHorn running it from the shell where i set the env varaible is a good idea, that works, but if i try it with my run command it doesn't, which is annying but... anyway, that's good enough to get the job done. thank you. – smatthewenglish Jan 29 '15 at 08:58
Try this for setting env only for eclipse: http://stackoverflow.com/a/12810433/1642005 – baju Jan 29 '15 at 08:59

envirnoment variable set on terminal but System.getenv returns null. java problems

1 Answers1