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Spent today (and much of the last few weeks) plowing through a java web app (Spring, Spring MVC, AOP, Hibernate, Tiles, Websphere etc etc etc)

This afternoon I went to use SQuirreL which doesn’t run by default with its windows install (or so it seems).

Classic example of ‘why do they make these things so hard’ is this batch file which starts the app on Windows:

 @echo off IF “%JAVA_HOME%”==”" SET LOCAL_JAVA=java IF NOT “%JAVA_HOME%”==”" SET LOCAL_JAVA=%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java set basedir=. :strip set removed=%basedir:~-1% set basedir=%basedir:~0,-1% if NOT “%removed%”==”\” goto strip set SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME=%basedir% @rem dir /b “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\squirrel-sql.jar” > temp.tmp @rem FOR /F %%I IN (temp.tmp) DO CALL “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\addpath.bat” “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\%%I” set TMP_CP=”%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\squirrel-sql.jar” dir /b “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\lib\*.*” > temp.tmp FOR /F %%I IN (temp.tmp) DO CALL “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\addpath.bat” “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\lib\%%I” SET TMP_CP=%TMP_CP%;”%CLASSPATH%” SET TMP_PARMS=–log-config-file “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\log4j.properties” –squirrel-home “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%” %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 @rem Run with a command window. @rem “%LOCAL_JAVA%” -cp %TMP_CP% net.sourceforge.squirrel_sql.client.Main %TMP_PARMS% @rem @rem To add translation working directories to your classpath edit and uncomment this line: @rem start “SQuirreL SQL Client” /B “%LOCAL_JAVA%w” -Xmx256m -cp %TMP_CP%;<your working dir here> net.sourceforge.squirrel_sql.client.Main %TMP_PARMS% @rem To change the language edit and uncomment this line: @rem start “SQuirreL SQL Client” /B “%LOCAL_JAVA%w” -Xmx256m -cp %TMP_CP%;<your working dir here> -Duser.language=<your language here> net.sourceforge.squirrel_sql.client.Main %TMP_PARMS% @rem Run with no command window. This may not work with older versions of Windows. Use the command above then. start “SQuirreL SQL Client” /B “%LOCAL_JAVA%w” -Xmx256m -cp %TMP_CP% net.sourceforge.squirrel_sql.client.Main %TMP_PARMS% @rem Run the executable jar file with or without a cmd window. However the @rem classes from the %CLASSPATH% environment variable will not be available. @rem “%LOCAL_JAVA%” -jar “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\squirrel-sql.jar” %TMP_PARMS% @rem start “SQuirreL SQL Client” /B “%LOCAL_JAVA%w” -jar “%SQUIRREL_SQL_HOME%\squirrel-sql.jar” %TMP_PARMS%

Which doesn’t work….

My slightly shorter version does work however:

start javaw -jar squirrel-sql.jar

I’m sure there is a perfectly valid reason for all the other stuff… but my brain hurts to much to bother finding out…