How do I add a permanent CLASSPATH to my Terminal on Mac OS El Capitan?

Question

I want to add the java-servlet-api.jar to the classpath variable.

export CLASSPATH=/.../java-servlet-api.jar

adds the class path to only one session of the terminal. How do I permanently add this to CLASSPATH?

I looked at a few links which asked me to modify the bashrc file, but I am unable to locate it on EL Capitan. Can someone help me with this?

Possible duplicate of [Adding to the classpath on OSX](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1676261/1248974) — chickity china chinese chicken, Sep 01 '16 at 16:40
Possible duplicate of [Adding to the classpath on OSX](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1675765/adding-to-the-classpath-on-osx) — talex, Sep 01 '16 at 16:41
Mac OS doesn't automatically make those user config files like `~/.bashrc` and `~/.bash_profile`, you have to manually create them - From a Terminal shell type `touch ~/.bashrc` then edit and add your `export`s lines. [How can I create bash_profile and bashrc](http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/219206). However, as Thomas Arnaud stated, and also in my experience, Mac doesn't do a good job detecting `.bashrc` so I've added exports to `~/.bash_profile` and works well. — chickity china chinese chicken, Sep 01 '16 at 16:58

Vy Do · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-01T16:55:16.980

You choose 1 of 2 solutions below:

Solution 1: Open Terminal, then type:

export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/path/to/file/java-servlet-api.jar

then:

source .bash_profile

Solution 2: Open terminal, type command:

vim ~/.bash_profile

you will see something like this:

press i, add your file to classpath like sample.

then, press esc, type :wq, then return

Make effective: don't need restart, type:

source .bash_profile

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 01 '16 at 16:45

By default, I am not sure that Mac OS terminal launches the .bashrc file. But it launches the .profile for sure.

Open a new terminal and launch this command :

echo 'export CLASSPATH=/.../java-servlet-api.jar' >> $HOME/.profile

Then open a new terminal and your environment variable should be ok.

2 Answers2