A Ready Solution for Unix

Lucky you if you have to use both Java 7 and 8 for different projects on the same dev box. I can totally relate the pain.

Initially, I was hoping brew would be able to magically sort out this problem for me. And boy, how naive was I. After few digging, it is not hard to find out brew is surely not the tool for this kind of job.

This is how jenv comes to the rescue. Obviously, jenv is a Java version managing tool. How jenv works is by setting up a shim in your home directory, and by adding the following lines to your .bash_profile, it then takes over and finds the right Java version to use globally or in a specific directory.

$ echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.jenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
$ echo 'eval "$(jenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Of course, you need to have different Java versions installed, and this is something brew cask will happily handle.

$ brew tap caskroom/versions
$ brew cask install java7
$ brew cask install java # this is default to Java 8

The next important thing is to make sure jenv is aware of the JDKs installed by adding them to jenv. The Java versions are normally installed under /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/.

$ jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home

Using jenv is in fact really easy and pleasant with command line.

$ jenv versions # this should list all the available Java versions
$ jenv global java8 # this should set Java 8 for the whole dev environment
$ jenv locally java7 # this should configure Java 7 for the directory

This seems like a happy ever after love story, but think again, is it though?

The likelihood is the project is now configured to use right Java version, but other tools, such as Maven, may disagree. The reason being as jenv shim takes over .bash_profile, it does not physically reconfigure Java version installed in /usr/bin. This will cause a hell lot of confusion while the project is configured to use one version of Java, yet Maven uses another version of Java by default.

There are different approaches to solving this problem, but rather than living with a tool I have no extended understanding of (which has in fact screwed me over more than once), I came up with a home grown solution.

A Home Grown Solution for Unix

Like I mentioned before, the downside of jenv is that the default version of Java remains unchanged, which causes lots of confusion.

To tackle this problem, my plan is to change default Java environment. The default Java executables configured in /usr/bin are nothing but symlinks, which means despite the fact that they should remain the same (if you want anything to work at all) on the surface, by pointing the executables to the version I want can archive the Java version switching just the same.

To make this work, first of all, you need to install different Java versions needed through our best friend brew cask. Then, replace all the current Java binaries in /usr/bin with the target version.

$ sudo unlink /usr/bin/java
$ sudo unlink /usr/bin/javac
$ sudo unlink /usr/bin/javadoc
$ sudo unlink /usr/bin/javah
$ sudo unlink /usr/bin/javap
$ sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java /usr/bin/java
$ sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/javac /usr/bin/javac
$ sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/javadoc /usr/bin/javadoc
$ sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/javah /usr/bin/javah
$ sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/javap /usr/bin/javap

Do remember to check your Java version to confirm the great success.

$ java -version

For whoever is not confident of what they are doing, I’d encourage you to take a copy of existing configs before trashing them.

As for the lazy ones, you know I must have a script to do this kind of dirty work. Yes, you are right. But also bear in mind, I have only come so far to make the script work for switching between Java 7 and 8 on a Mac with the listed Java versions installed.

After going through my solution, I am sure everyone would be able to create a version tailored to their systems.

One last tip I would give is: make sure Java version to use is compatible with the tools. I have colleagues trying to configure Maven 3.2+ to use Java 1.6, and I just can’t stress enough how big a disaster that is.

A Piece of Cake in Linux

Comparing to Unix, switching Java versions (OpenJDK) on Ubuntu 14.04 is like walking in the park.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
$ sudo update-alternatives --config java
$ sudo update-alternatives --config javac

It is quite unlikely, but if for any odds the package is not available, try running sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa first.

After all, the solution is solid and widely used by the community, so really, don’t try to be creative unless you are really bored.

Happy hacking!