Trying to run a POI-dependent class on Command Prompt

Question

As the title says, I'm trying to run a class in Command Prompt which uses the Apache POI library but when I run this command:

java -cp C:\Users\rperera\IdeaProjects\LinkingNames\libs; HyperlinkWriter

I get this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/poi/ss/usermodel/CreationHelper
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.getMethod0(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.getMethod(Unknown Source)
    at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.getMainMethod(Unknown Source)
    at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.CreationHelper
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    ... 6 more

the libs folder contains the entire POI folder that's zipped up when downloaded so I'm not sure why it's throwing this error. I also tested this with IntelliJ and it ran fine. I know that the way Command Prompt and IntelliJ handles libraries is different but I'm not sure why this is happening.

I would appreciate any help! Thanks!

yes, is the folder you downloaded containing the POI library unzipped? — andrewdleach, Aug 05 '15 at 20:50
The jars are still zipped but `poi-bin-3.12-20150511.zip` is unzipped — silverAndroid, Aug 05 '15 at 20:51
Are all the .jar files from your download in that directory, e.g. "poi-3.12-20150511.jar", etc.? — rgettman, Aug 05 '15 at 20:53
I'd check for extra POI jars. I just had a similar issue using a maven build and there were conflicting versions declared. If you have more than one jar containing the class org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.CreationHelper I would expect a java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: — BoatCode, Aug 05 '15 at 20:55
@rgettman all the .jar files from the download are in the directory — silverAndroid, Aug 05 '15 at 20:59
@BoatCode i checked for extra POI jars but I didn't find any extra jars containing the class — silverAndroid, Aug 05 '15 at 20:59
Jars in a directory isn't normally enough. What happens if you explicitly list them on the classpath? — Gagravarr, Aug 06 '15 at 08:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 05 '15 at 20:56

1

You need to actually compile the jar with the original .java files and the specified POI jars.

javac -cp \path_to_jars \path_to_java_files

and then

java MyProject

answered Aug 05 '15 at 20:56

andrewdleach

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I tried `javac -cp C:\Users\rperera\IdeaProjects\LinkingNames\libs C:\Users\rperera\IdeaProjects\LinkingNames\src\HyperlinkWriter.java` but it gave a bunch of errors leading from the fact that the compiler complained that the POI packages didn't exist – silverAndroid Aug 05 '15 at 21:04
Have you removed any extra .class files? – andrewdleach Aug 05 '15 at 21:06
I removed all of the ones generated by IntelliJ but I'm still getting the errors – silverAndroid Aug 05 '15 at 21:08
Not only compile, but run too! You need those jars listed on the classpath for the `java` runtime command too! – Gagravarr Aug 06 '15 at 08:13
@Gagravarr I know that but I can't run it unless I can compile it – silverAndroid Aug 06 '15 at 11:14

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

1

I found the answer from a previous answer of StackOverflow. I had to add a '*' to the end, and a '.' after the semicolon. So with my example, in terms of compiling, I had to do:

javac -cp C:\Users\rperera\IdeaProjects\LinkingNames\libs\*;. C:\Users\rperera\IdeaProjects\LinkingNames\src\HyperlinkWriter.java

and then to run it (Credit to @andrewdleach), I just did:

java HyperlinkWriter

edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

Community

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answered Aug 06 '15 at 13:35

silverAndroid

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Trying to run a POI-dependent class on Command Prompt

2 Answers2