Java 8 on OS X

This morning I decided to upgrade to the Macbook to the latest and greatest Java version from Oracle.

I downloaded jdk-8u25-macosx-x64.dmg from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html.

After the installation (which doesn’t mention any paths) it links to this: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/

(Double check to make sure I really installed a JDK and not just the runtime environment? The filename looks right…)

So, where is it?

$ java -version still reports 1.6, but that’s because I have JAVA_HOME set in .bash_profile and on the PATH.

  $ echo $JAVA_HOME
  /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home

But the new one isn’t there under Versions:

  $ ls /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/
  1.4		1.5		1.6		A		CurrentJDK
  1.4.2		1.5.0		1.6.0		Current

Ah ha! The Uninstall instructions on …/guides/install/mac_jdk.html tell us to delete /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdkmajor.minor.macro[_update].jdk

and there it is:

$ ls /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/
jdk1.8.0_25.jdk

After looking around a bit, our new line for ~/.bash_profile is

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home

and it works!

$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_25"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_25-b17)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.25-b02, mixed mode)

$ javac -version
javac 1.8.0_25

(Remember to open a new terminal window or otherwise reload ~/.bash_profile after making changes.)