Java For Dummies Quick Reference

JDK Folder Structure

The JDK setup program creates several folders on your hard drive. The locations of these folders vary depending on your system, but in all versions of Windows, the JDK root folder is in the path Program Files\Java on your boot drive. The name of the JDK root folder also varies, depending on the Java version you’ve installed. For version 1.7, the root folder is jdk1.7.0.

Here are the subfolders created in the JDK root folder. As you work with Java, you’ll refer to these folders frequently.

Folder	Description
bin	The compiler and other Java development tools
demo	Demo programs you can study to see how to use various Java features
docs	The Java application programming interface (API) documentation
include	The library containing files needed to integrate Java with programs written in other languages
jre	JRE files
lib	Library files, including the Java API class library
Sample	Sample code

In addition to these folders, the JDK installs several files in the JDK root folder.

File	Description
README.html	The Java README file in HTML format.
README.txt	The README file, this time in text format.
LICENSE	The Java license you agree to when you download the JDK.
LICENSE.rtf	The license file, this time in RTF format.
COPYRIGHT	The copyright notice.
src.zip	The source code for the Java API classes. This folder is created only if you unpack the src.zip file (which may be named ...