Not able to switch java home properly in mac

I have two versions of Java in my mac and I am trying to switch from 1.8 to 1.7 for compiling one of my project which has 1.7 specific contents. Though I ran the following commands in the terminal:

$ alias setJdk1.7='export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7)'
$ setJdk1.7


With that, I can see the proper version in java -version and mvn -version.

$ java -version

java version "1.7.0_181"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_181-b09)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.181-b09, mixed mode)

$ mvn -version

Apache Maven 3.0.5 (...)
Maven home: *mvn path*
Java version: 1.7.0_181, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_181.jdk/Contents/Home/jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "mac os x", version: "10.13.5", arch: "x86_64", family: "mac"


However, the /usr/libexec/java_home still seems to be pointing to the 1.8 java only.

$ echo $(/usr/libexec/java_home)
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_151.jdk/Contents/Home


I am very new to mac and not really sure how I can toggle between versions. This is not allowing to successfully compile my project.

1 Answer
1

Maybe try using a function instead and setting up your command as follows:

setJdk1.7() {
export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7)
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
}


Your command likely doesn't work because $JAVA_HOME is never added to your $PATH.

$JAVA_HOME

$PATH

setJdk1.7

/usr/libexec/java_home -V

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7.0)

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