How to add JFreeChart library to JDK? Error: package org.jfree.chart does not exist

Question

I'm starting with Java after some experience with other languages. For all of them I have been using Atom code editor. And so I have managed with Java but recently I have found out that I need to use an external library JFreeChart.

I am using JDK 8 to run Java on cmd (Windows) and I'm not using any IDE.

I tried so far:

javac -cp "lib/*" ./Test.java

with jfreechart-1.0.19.jar and jcommon-1.0.23.jar in lib folder.

Using Maven with pom.xml:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>my-project</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>

    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.jfree/jfreechart -->
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.jfree</groupId>
        <artifactId>jfreechart</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.jfree</groupId>
      <artifactId>jcommon</artifactId>
      <version>1.0.24</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

Using CLASSPATH system variable:

D:\Study\Java\code\com\lib\jfreechart-1.0.19.jar
D:\Study\Java\code\com\lib\jcommon-1.0.23.jar

Putting jar files in D:\Program Files\Java\jdk\jre\lib\ext

and so far I always get:

error: package org.jfree.chart does not exist

I'm kinda going nuts now so I'm asking for help. What can I do to add this library correctly ?

Here is my code (maybe I'm importing incorrectly):

import org.jfree.chart.JFreeChart;
import org.jfree.chart.ChartUtilities;
import org.jfree.chart.ChartFactory;
import org.jfree.data.general.DefaultPieDataset;
import java.io.File;

public class Test {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    DefaultPieDataset pieDataset = new DefaultPieDataset();
  }
}

Full error message (in all cases it was the same):

D:\Study\Java\code\jfc> javac .\Test.java
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8
.\Test.java:2: error: package org.jfree.chart does not exist
import org.jfree.chart.JFreeChart;

                      ^
.\Test.java:3: error: package org.jfree.chart does not exist
import org.jfree.chart.ChartUtilities;
                      ^
.\Test.java:4: error: package org.jfree.chart does not exist
import org.jfree.chart.ChartFactory;
                      ^
.\Test.java:5: error: package org.jfree.data.general does not exist
import org.jfree.data.general.DefaultPieDataset;
                             ^
.\Test.java:10: error: cannot find symbol
    DefaultPieDataset pieDataset = new DefaultPieDataset();
    ^
  symbol:   class DefaultPieDataset
  location: class Test
.\Test.java:10: error: cannot find symbol
    DefaultPieDataset pieDataset = new DefaultPieDataset();
                                       ^
  symbol:   class DefaultPieDataset
  location: class Test
6 errors

Answer 1

Since you are using a pom.xml you've "mavenized" your project and hence you need to use Maven to build it.

So there are a couple of things:

1. Be sure you have downloaded, installed and setup Maven correctly (it needs to be path of your path) ... if you've not already done so check out Welcome to Apache Maven
2. Make sure your settings.xml is configured correctly to point to a Maven repository (i.e. http://repo1.maven.org/maven2) as well as specify your local Maven repository (where it'll download the lib's to).
3. Ensure you have structured your code according to the standard project structure.

This would mean that your Test class would need to placed in the package org.codehaus.mojo. So according to the standard project structure, Test would appear in the directory structure D:\Study\Java\code\jfc\src\main\java\org\codehaus\mojo\Test.java

4. You pom.xml should sit in D:\Study\Java\code\jfc\
5. In the same directory as your ./pom.xml run the mvn package command.
6. If everything is setup correctly, Maven will connect to the remote repository you've configured, download those packages to your local repository and build a JAR file, which you can then run.

Have a read through Maven in Five Minutes

UPDATE: Packaging a jar with dependencies.

In order to package a jar with dependencies, you will need to add the maven-assembly-plugin to your pom.xml. Once you've added this to your pom.xml and run mvn package it should generate (according to your example) a jar called my-project-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar (you can change the descriptorRef for a better name, or exclude it). This jar should contain all the run-time dependencies your project needs.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <archive>
          <manifest>
            <mainClass>org.codehaus.mojo.Test</mainClass>
           </manifest>
        </archive>
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
      </configuration>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <id>make-assembly</id> <!-- this is used for inheritance merges -->
          <phase>package</phase> <!-- bind to the packaging phase -->
          <goals>
            <goal>single</goal>
          </goals>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Have read through Maven Assembly Plugin : Usage