What Should I Set Java_Home Environment Variable on MACos X 10.6

What should I set JAVA_HOME environment variable on macOS X 10.6?

I just set JAVA_HOME to the output of that command, which should give you the Java path specified in your Java preferences. Here's a snippet from my .bashrc file, which sets this variable:

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

I haven't experienced any problems with that technique.

Occasionally I do have to change the value of JAVA_HOME to an earlier version of Java. For example, one program I'm maintaining requires 32-bit Java 5 on OS X, so when using that program, I set JAVA_HOME by running:

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.5)

For those of you who don't have java_home in your path add it like this.

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/java_home /usr/libexec/java_home

References:

• Oracle explains the java_home command

• An article for configuring the JDK in Spring Tool Suite (Eclipse
  2019) on MacOS

How to set JAVA_HOME environment variable on Mac OS X 10.9?

If you're using bash, all you have to do is:

echo export "JAVA_HOME=\$(/usr/libexec/java_home)" >> ~/.bash_profile

If you're using zsh (which probably means you're running macOS Catalina or newer), then it should instead be:

echo export "JAVA_HOME=\$(/usr/libexec/java_home)" >> ~/.zshrc

In either case, restart your shell.

If you have multiple JDK versions installed and you want it to be a specific one, you can use the -v flag to java_home like so:

echo export "JAVA_HOME=\$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7)" >> ~/.bash_profile

How should I set the JAVA_HOME environment variable on macOS?

I'm not sure why you are afraid to test, you can safely test this:

In your terminal session, input the following:

echo "export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`"

This will print the following line:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home

Copy the above and paste it into your terminal window, then press enter key. and execute java -version to see it work correctly. If everything is okay, you can attach the code into your .profile:

But adding this line directly is better idea because you don't have to update .profile when you upgrade JDK.

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`

Please refer to the man page for the java_home tool. In short, it provides the appropriate path for JAVA_HOME for a normal installation on macOS

Where is JAVA_HOME on macOS Mojave (10.14) to Lion (10.7)?

With the Java optional package or Oracle JDK installed,
adding one of the following lines to your ~/.bash_profile file will set the environment variable accordingly.

export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6)"
or
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7)"
or
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8)"
or simply
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home)"

Note: If you installed openjdk on mac using brew, run sudo ln -sfn /usr/local/opt/openjdk/libexec/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk for the above to work

Update: added -v flag based on Jilles van Gurp response.

Setting $JAVA_HOME correctly on Mac OS

In your question, the command shows spaces around the '=' sign in the assignment, which will mess it up.

The assignment should look like this:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_31.jdk/Contents/Home

You definitely shouldn't have the $(...) around it - that tries to execute the text inside the parentheses, which is why you get that "No such file or directory" error. Perhaps that came from trying to use examples which show how to execute the OSX java_home command, as shown in the answer to this question:
What should I set JAVA_HOME to on OSX

Why I am not able to see the JAVA_HOME path on my MAC OS X 10.11?

Where to define it

Ok, first of all, we have to make clear where to set JAVA_HOME.

Simplified, you can define it in two files: either ~/.bashrc or ~/bash_profile. By default the former is executed for what is called "interactive non-login shells" while the latter is used for "login shells".
A "login shell" is exactly what you'd expect: a shell which is started after login via command line. An "interactive non-login shell" is a shell which is started from within a GUI for example. So, according to that, we should put our export statement into ~/.bashrc.

Side note: While OS X's "Terminal" application reads both files mentioned, this is not the default behavior and therefor should not be treated as such. And thats why I wrote an explanation.

What do define

You need to export JAVA_HOME in the ~/.bashrc file so that every time a shell is opened, the variable is set.

On OS X, the Java Development Kits and Runtime Environments are stored under /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/ for quite a while now. Have a look there. This is how it looks at my machine:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/
├── jdk1.7.0_45.jdk
├── jdk1.8.0_20.jdk
├── jdk1.8.0_25.jdk
└── jdk1.8.0_51.jdk

The subfolders look similar to this

jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/
└── Contents
    ├── Home
    ├── Info.plist
    └── MacOS

And there we got it. So if you wanted to point to the JDK 1.7.0_45, you'd put the following statement into your .bashrc

export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home"

To make sure that the correct binaries for that Java version are called, you also should add the following somewhere after the above statement:

export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Failed to find 'JAVA_HOME' environment variable in Mac

You didn't install JAVA_HOME correctly, therefore it fails.

You have to do it like following:

• 10 JDK 8 Installation for OS X

After installation you have to add installed java to system variable:

• How to Set $JAVA_HOME environment variable on Mac OS X
• What should I set JAVA_HOME to on OSX
  

Run in terminal for verification:

java -version

The output should be something like:

java version "1.8.0_06-ea"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_06-ea-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.2-b04, mixed mode)

After this check, you can import java to your IDE.

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