JAVA_HOME: What does it do?

[gwideman]

Could someone point me to authoritative docs on what the JAVA_HOME environment variable does?  Ie:



1. What programs read that variable to find out where to find what?



2. How does it relate to/complement/override an entry in the PATH environment variable to a particular java bin directory?



3. In sifting the hundreds of messages speculating on JAVA_HOME, one occasionally sees mention of JAVA_PATH, JRE_HOME and JDK_HOME. Are these actual environment variables inspected by something I might care about, or just random internet noise?



Thanks,



-- Graham

[tamago-2]

well, JAVA_HOME basically is a parameter used as a reference so you can use it to set all other stuff. The good thing is if you change your jdk folder for example, you don't need to change all your setting because you can just change your JAVA_HOME parameter and all related parameters get automatically updated



1. it is used by Tomcat Web Server if i'm not mistaken,it is using to tell web server in which directory our jdk file reside



2. like i said before, you can used it to set all other parameter (e.g : set path=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;) so if the directory changed you dont need to replace all value, only the JAVA_HOME



3. no, its not random internet noise but you dont need to think about it too much :)



CMIIW