Bagrat Mukaelyan

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” - Bruce Lee

4 minute read

This article shows how to install Java JDK on macOS, Homebrew package manager, manual installation, and switch between different JDK versions.

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Tested with

  • macOS Ventura 13.0.1
  • Homebrew 3.6.11
  • JDK 8, 11, 17 (Amazon Corretto and OpenJDK)
  • jEnv 0.5.5

P.S At the time of writing, the latest JDK GA is JDK 18, and the early access build is JDK 19.

Since macOS 10.15 Catalina, the default Terminal shell switch from the bash (Bourne-again shell) to zsh (Z shell). And we should move all the startup scripts and environment variables in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc to ~/.zshenv or ~/.zshrc. Also, read this Zsh Startup Files.

Homebrew install latest Java on macOS

  1. Install and upgrade Homebrew.
  2. brew search openjdk to find all available Java-related formula. 
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     ~ ❯ brew search openjdk
    
 ==> Formulae
 openjdk ✔                  openjdk@17 ✔               openj9
 openjdk@11 ✔               openjdk@8 ✔                openvdb
    
 ==> Casks
 adoptopenjdk               microsoft-openjdk          openkey
 adoptopenjdk8              microsoft-openjdk11
  3. brew info to show the formula details.
    The java formula is always containing the latest Java JDK (OpenJDK) version; at the time of writing, the latest is JDK 19. 
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     ~ ❯ brew info openjdk
    
 ==> openjdk: stable 19.0.1 (bottled) [keg-only]
 Development kit for the Java programming language
 https://openjdk.java.net/
 /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk/19.0.1 (638 files, 318.6MB)
   Poured from bottle on 2022-11-09 at 15:22:22
 From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/openjdk.rb
 License: GPL-2.0-only with Classpath-exception-2.0

    The openjdk@17 formula is containing the java 17LTS version

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     ~ ❯ brew info openjdk@17
    
 ==> openjdk@17: stable 17.0.5 (bottled) [keg-only]
 Development kit for the Java programming language
 https://openjdk.java.net/
 /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk@17/17.0.5 (641 files, 305.9MB)
   Poured from bottle on 2022-10-20 at 01:50:10
 From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/[email protected]
 License: GPL-2.0-only with Classpath-exception-2.0

    The openjdk@11 formula is containing the java 11LTS version

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     ~ ❯ brew info openjdk@11
    
 ==> openjdk@11: stable 11.0.16.1 (bottled) [keg-only]
 Development kit for the Java programming language
 https://openjdk.java.net/
 /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk@11/11.0.16.1_1 (678 files, 298.8MB)
   Poured from bottle on 2022-09-24 at 09:39:00
 From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/[email protected]
 License: GPL-2.0-only

    The openjdk@8 formula is containing the java 8LTS version

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     ~ ❯ brew info openjdk@8
    
 ==> openjdk@8: stable 1.8.0+352 (bottled) [keg-only]
 Development kit for the Java programming language
 https://openjdk.java.net/
 /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk@8/1.8.0+352 (782 files, 192.0MB)
   Poured from bottle on 2022-11-13 at 23:18:44
 From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/[email protected]
 License: GPL-2.0-only
  4. brew install openjdk to install the latest JDK 19. 
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     ~ ❯ brew install openjdk

    Or any LTS version you want

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     ~ ❯ brew install openjdk@17

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     ~ ❯ brew install openjdk@11

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     ~ ❯ brew install openjdk@8
  5. Where does Homebrew install the java?
    Homebrew installed the JDK files and directories at /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk/, and symbolic link at /usr/local/opt/openjdk points to the latest Java 19.0.1 version. 
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     ~ ❯ ls -lsa /usr/local/Cellar/openjdk/
    
 total 0
 0 drwxr-xr-x@   3 mbagrat  admin    96 Nov  9 15:22 .
 0 drwxrwxr-x  189 mbagrat  admin  6048 Nov 14 21:41 ..
 0 drwxr-xr-x@  10 mbagrat  admin   320 Nov  9 15:22 19.0.1

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     ~ ❯ ls -lsa /usr/local/opt/openjdk

 0 lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 mbagrat  admin  24 Nov  9 15:22 /usr/local/opt/openjdk -> ../Cellar/openjdk/19.0.1

  6. The openjdk formula is keg-only, which means it is installed in /usr/local/Cellar but not linked into places like /usr/local/bin or /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/ (macOS /usr/bin/java wrapper).

    For macOS /usr/bin/java wrapper to find the installed JDK, we manually create a symbolic link at /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/.

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     ~ ❯ sudo ln -sfn /usr/local/opt/openjdk/libexec/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk
  7. Done. 
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     ~ ❯ java --version
    
 openjdk 19.0.1 2022-10-18
 OpenJDK Runtime Environment Corretto-19.0.1.10.1 (build 19.0.1+10-FR)
 OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Corretto-19.0.1.10.1 (build 19.0.1+10-FR, mixed mode, sharing)

What’s jEnv?

jenv gives you a few critical affordances for using java on development machines:

  • It lets you switch between java versions. This is useful when developing Android applications, which generally require Java 8 for its tools, versus server applications, which use later versions like Java 11 or java 17.
  • It sets JAVA_HOME inside your shell, in a way that can be set globally, local to the current working directory or per shell.

Installing jEnv

On OSX, the simpler way to install jEnv is using Homebrew

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 ~ ❯ brew install jenv

To activate jenv, add the following to your ~/.zshrc:

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 export PATH="$HOME/.jenv/bin:$PATH"
 eval "$(jenv init -)"

Restart your shell by closing and reopening your terminal window or running exec $SHELL -l in the current session for the changes to take effect.

To verify jenv was installed, run jenv doctor. On a macOS machine, you’ll observe the following output:

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 ~ ❯ jenv doctor
 
 [OK]	No JAVA_HOME set
 [ERROR]	Java binary in path is not in the jenv shims.
 [ERROR]	Please check your path, or try using /path/to/java/home is not a valid path to java installation.
 	PATH : /Users/user/.jenv/libexec:/Users/user/.jenv/shims:/Users/user/.jenv/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
 [OK]	Jenv is correctly loaded

To add JDK into jenv run

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 ~ ❯ jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home/
 
 openjdk64-19.0.1 added
 19.0.1 added
 19.0 added

A alias name will be generated by parsing “java -version”

To see all Java versions available to jenv run

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 ~ ❯ jenv versions
 
   system
   1.8.0.342
   1.8.0.345
   11.0.15
   17.0
   17.0.3
   18.0
 * 19 (set by /Users/mbagrat/.jenv/version)
   19.0
   19.0.1
   corretto64-1.8.0.342
   corretto64-11.0.15
   corretto64-17.0.3
   corretto64-19
   openjdk64-1.8.0.345
   openjdk64-11.0.15
   openjdk64-17.0.3
   openjdk64-19
   openjdk64-19.0.1

To be set or show the global Java version run

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 ~ ❯ jenv global 19

And that’s it. To verify that everything setup correct, run jenv doctor.

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 ~ ❯ jenv doctor
 
 [OK]	JAVA_HOME variable probably set by jenv PROMPT
 [OK]	Java binaries in path are jenv shims
 [OK]	Jenv is correctly loaded

References

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