This workshop is for you, if you think

• You are spending too much time in office writing getter setter methods
• You are bored of seeing command prompts with hundreds of compilation errors even after writing a wonderful java code

This workshop is not for you, if

• You are well versed with eclipse

What is this workshop all about?

We were successful in creating Hello World application with the help of textpad or notepad and got it compiled and run from command prompt.

But, hey isn’t this a time consuming process, project dead lines doesn’t give me such a leisure time.

We have IDE to the rescue!

This workshop will explain

• Installation and set up of Eclipse
• Execution of simple Hello World Application using Eclipse IDE

Prerequisite

• JDK installed on system

For more information on how to install JDK you can refer to Java Hello World Article.

Installation and set up of Eclipse

Steps for eclipse installation are as below

• To download eclipse clickEclipse 3.4
• Start eclipse
• Select the location for workspace

• Eclipse installation doesn’t come up with setup.exe file. To run eclipse simply execute eclipse.exe from extracted folder

 

• You will see the following eclipse welcome screen on successful start of eclipse application.

Execution of simple Hello World Application

• Navigate to “File/New/Java Project” as shown below for creating the new Java Project naming “Hello World With IDE”.

• Provide with following information in the given field.

Project Name: Hello World With IDE

• Here you have the option to either Create new project in workspace or you can create project from existing source.
• You can also use the previously created HelloWorld application as the existing source.
  But here we preferred to create a new project for better understanding.

• Click “Next” button, you see the following screen.

• Check the “Allow output folders for source folder” option if you wish to have the class file for the HelloWorld.java

• Navigate to “Libraries” tab. For this application we have used JRE 6, you select any other version of JRE if you wish.

• Click “Finish” button, you see the following screen.

• Next step will be to create HelloWorld.java file. Navigate to File/New/Class.

• On selecting class option you see New Java Class pop-up. Here we will create the HelloWorld.java file with the default package.
• One of the advantage of using IDE as the development tool is it helps you create code skeleton and comments, so you can spend your precious time doing other important things in life like fishing, long drives, dating ,etc. 

• Name (Name of the Java File): HelloWorld
• Which method stubs would you like to create: Check “public static void main(String[] args)” option.
• Do you want to add comments?: Check “Generate comments” option.
• Click Finish to create the HelloWorld.java

• Now you have the stub of main method created. You are ready to edit the method as per your needs.
  Edit the main method to print “HelloWorld” as shown below.

• Now to run the application right click on HelloWorld.java and select “Run As/Java Application” option.

• On successful run you will see output as “Hello World” in console as shown below

• Wow! That’s a magic. I got the output even without a class file.
• No! This is not a magic. Behind the scenes eclipse compile the source java file and creates a class file in bin directory of your project workspace . Don’t you believe? Check “C:\Documents and Settings\HelloWorld\workspace1\bin\”

So here is your entry to IDE world!

This workshop is for you, if you think:

• I read a lot about bytecode
• I never got my hands dirty with code yet
• I never got past ClassCastException

This workshop is not for you, if you are:

• A Java guru having experience since donkey’s age so you should be here to provide others with some useful articles
• Looking for basics and fundamentals of Java

“Hello World” Heck!

We need JDK for compiling our source Java file to class file (bytecode). So, we do not have JDK installed in our system, we need to install it first. The below steps provide details regarding installing JDK and setting up Java Path Environment variable:

• Download JDK from Sun Java website and install it, say, at “C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10”
• Navigate to your Environment Variables by right clicking “My Computer” selecting “Properties/Advanced/Environment Variables”
• Create a new User Variable name “Path”, if it does not already exist, and set the variable value as the complete path of the bin directory of JDK i.e.”C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10\bin” in this case
• If the variable name “PATH” already exist in the system variable, then make sure it points to the right directory where the JDK is installed.
• Note that more than one value can be set to Path variable with semicolon (;) as value separator.
• Another way you can set the Path in User variable is through the DOS command prompt.
• Go to Start menu choose Run and then enter cmd hit enter, you will see the Command Prompt.
• Execute the following command “set Path=”C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10\bin”
• This can be verified by executing “echo %Path%”. This should return the “C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10\bin” value.

• It should be noted that the scope of the Path variable set from the command line is limited to the life time of the DOS Command Prompt session and is applicable only to that specific session of DOS Command Prompt.
• So, we highly recommend that setting of Path User variable is to be done from “My Computer”.

My Hello World Java code

• Take some simple editor to start with like notepad or textpad.
• Create a HelloWorld.java application as below

    public class HelloWorld {  
          public static void main(String[] args) { 
              System.out.println("Hello World"); 
          }
    }  

• Save the file as HelloWorld.java somewhere on your local system, say, at the following location “D:\Hello World Workshop”.
• Open Command Prompt as explained in previous steps and navigate to Hello World Workshop directory with the help of following 2 commands
  “D:” and “cd “Hello World Workshop”.
• Compile the HelloWorld.java file as “javac HelloWorld.java”. This will create the HelloWorld.class file in the same directory.
• Next step is to order Java Virtual Machine to run the HelloWorld application for you. Execute the following command “java HelloWorld”

• On successful run, you will get the output “Hello World”.

Welcome to Java Land!