The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

Technology by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven

OpenJDK OpenJDK (Open Java Development Kit) is a free and open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE). It is the result of an effort Sun Microsystems began in 2006. The implementation is licensed under the GPL-2.0-only w ...

which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are the virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for a Java programmer. Oracle have released the current version of the software under the Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) license. Oracle release binaries for the x86-64 architecture for Windows, macOS, and Linux based operating systems, and for the aarch64 architecture for macOS and Linux. Previous versions have supported the Oracle Solaris operating system and

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system develope ...

architecture. Oracle's primary implementation of the JVMS is known as the

HotSpot (virtual machine) HotSpot, released as Java HotSpot Performance Engine, is a Java virtual machine for desktop and server computers, developed by Sun Microsystems and now maintained and distributed by Oracle Corporation. It features improved performance via met ...

JDK contents

The JDK has as its primary components a collection of programming tools, including: *

appletviewer AppletViewer is a standalone command-line program from Sun to run Java applets. Appletviewer is generally used by developers for testing their applets before deploying them to a website. As a Java developer, it is a preferred option for running J ...

– this tool can be used to run and debug Java applets without a web browser * apt – the annotation-processing tool * extcheck – a utility that detects JAR file conflicts * idlj – the IDL-to-Java compiler. This utility generates Java bindings from a given Java IDL file. * jabswitch – the

Java Access Bridge The Java Access Bridge (JAB) exposes accessibility information about Java components to screen readers and other assistive technologies running on the Windows platform. Prior to Java SE Version 7 Update 6, the Java Access Bridge needed to be inst ...

. Exposes assistive technologies on Microsoft Windows systems. * java – the

loader Loader can refer to: * Loader (equipment) * Loader (computing) ** LOADER.EXE, an auto-start program loader optionally used in the startup process of Microsoft Windows ME * Loader (surname) * Fast loader * Speedloader * Boot loader ** LOADER.COM ...

for Java applications. This tool is an interpreter and can interpret the class files generated by the

javac javac (pronounced "java-see") is the primary Java compiler included in the Java Development Kit (JDK) from Oracle Corporation. Martin Odersky implemented the GJ compiler, and his implementation became the basis for javac. The compiler accept ...

compiler. Now a single launcher is used for both development and deployment. The old deployment launcher, jre, comes with Sun JDK, and instead it has been replaced by this new java loader. *

– the

Java compiler A Java compiler is a compiler for the programming language Java. The most common form of output from a Java compiler is Java class files containing platform-neutral Java bytecode, but there are also compilers that output optimized native machine ...

, which converts source code into

Java bytecode In computing, Java bytecode is the bytecode-structured instruction set of the Java virtual machine (JVM), a virtual machine that enables a computer to run programs written in the Java programming language and several other programming langua ...

javadoc Javadoc (originally cased JavaDoc) is a documentation generator created by Sun Microsystems for the Java language (now owned by Oracle Corporation) for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code. The HTML format is used for ...

– the documentation generator, which automatically generates documentation from

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...

comments * jar – the archiver, which packages related class

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

into a single JAR file. This tool also helps manage JAR files. * javafxpackager – tool to package and sign JavaFX applications * jarsigner – the jar signing and verification tool * javah – the C header and stub generator, used to write native methods * javap – the class file

disassembler A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. A disassembler differs from a decompiler, which targets a high-level language rather than an assembly ...

* javaws – the

Java Web Start In computing, Java Web Start (also known as JavaWS, javaws or JAWS) is a deprecated framework developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) that allows users to start application software for the Java Platform directly from the Internet using a web b ...

launcher for JNLP applications *

JConsole JConsole is a graphical monitoring tool to monitor Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and Java applications both on a local or remote machine. JConsole uses underlying features of Java Virtual Machine to provide information on performance and resource cons ...

– Java Monitoring and Management Console * jdb – the

debugger A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the programmer to track its executi ...

* jhat – Java Heap Analysis Tool (experimental) * jinfo – This utility gets configuration information from a running Java process or crash dump. (experimental) * jma
Oracle jmap - Memory Map
ndash; This utility outputs the memory map for Java and can print shared object memory maps or heap memory details of a given process or core dump. (experimental) * jmc – Java Mission Control * jpackage – a tool for generating self-contained application bundles. (experimental) * jps – Java Virtual Machine Process Status Tool lists the instrumented HotSpot Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) on the target system. (experimental) * jrunscript – Java command-line

script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of ha ...

shell. *

jshell JShell is a Java read-eval-print loop which was first introduced in the JDK 9. It is tracked by JEP 222 ''jshell: The Java Shell (Read-Eval-Print Loop)''. One reason why JShell was proposed for Java 9 is the lack of a standard interactive environ ...

- a

read–eval–print loop A read–eval–print loop (REPL), also termed an interactive toplevel or language shell, is a simple interactive computer programming environment that takes single user inputs, executes them, and returns the result to the user; a program written ...

, introduced in Java 9. * jstack – utility that prints Java

stack trace In computing, a stack trace (also called stack backtrace or stack traceback) is a report of the active stack frames at a certain point in time during the execution of a program. When a program is run, memory is often dynamically allocated in two ...

s of Java threads (experimental) * jstat –

Java Virtual Machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describe ...

statistics monitoring tool (experimental) * jstatd – jstat daemon (experimental) * keytool – tool for manipulating the keystore * pack200 – JAR compression tool * policytool – the policy creation and management tool, which can determine policy for a Java runtime, specifying which permissions are available for code from various sources. * VisualVM – visual tool integrating several

command-line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

JDK tools and lightweight performance and memory profiling capabilities (no longer included in JDK 9+) * wsimport – generates portable JAX-WS artifacts for invoking a web service. * xjc – Part of the Java API for XML Binding (JAXB) API. It accepts an XML schema and generates Java classes. Experimental tools may not be available in future versions of the JDK. The JDK also comes with a complete Java Runtime Environment (JRE), usually called a ''private'' runtime, due to the fact that it is separated from the "regular" JRE and has extra contents. It consists of a

and all of the class libraries present in the production environment, as well as additional libraries only useful to developers, such as the

internationalization In economics, internationalization or internationalisation is the process of increasing involvement of enterprises in international markets, although there is no agreed definition of internationalization. Internationalization is a crucial strateg ...

libraries and the IDL libraries. Copies of the JDK also include a wide selection of example programs demonstrating the use of almost all portions of the

Java API There are two types of Java programming language application programming interfaces (APIs): * The official core Java API, contained in the Android (Google), SE (OpenJDK and Oracle), MicroEJ. These packages (java.* packages) are the core Java la ...

Other JDKs

In addition to the most widely used JDK discussed in this article, there are other JDKs commonly available for a variety of platforms, some of which started from the Sun JDK source and some that did not. All adhere to the basic Java specifications, but often differ in explicitly unspecified areas, such as garbage collection, compilation strategies, and optimization techniques. They include: In development or in maintenance mode: * Azul Systems Zing, low latency JDK for Linux; * Azul Systems /

-based Zulu for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, embedded and the cloud; *

/ IcedTea; * Aicas JamaicaVM; * IBM J9 JDK, for AIX, Linux, Windows, MVS, OS/400, Pocket PC, z/OS; Not being maintained or discontinued: *

Apache Harmony Apache Harmony is a retired open source, free Java implementation, developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It was announced in early May 2005 and on October 25, 2006, the Board of Directors voted to make Apache Harmony a top-level project ...

; *

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

's Mac OS Runtime for Java JVM/JDK for Classic

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

; * Blackdown Java – Port of Sun's JDK for Linux; *

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

's Classpath and GCJ (The

GNU Compiler for Java The GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ) is a free compiler for the Java programming language. It was part of the GNU Compiler Collection for over ten years but as of 2017 it is no longer maintained and will not be part of future releases. GCJ compiles ...

); *

's JRockit JDK, for Windows, Linux, and Solaris;

References

Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

JDK alternative {{Java (Sun)

JDK The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java Technology by Oracle Corporation. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java ...

Software development kits Oracle software Sun Microsystems software

JDK contents

Other JDKs

See also

References

External links