CLASSPATH and extensions

Question

I have an executable JAR file that uses the CommAPI - which is installed properly - i.e. when I run the program in non-jar form it works fine:
C:> java ISC_Knox/ISC_KnoxApplicationHowever when I run it in jar form I get an class-not-found exception
C:> java -jar ISC_Knox.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/comm/SerialPortEventListener
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass0(Native Method)
    ...The only way I can get it to work is to add a "Class-path=comm.jar" to my manifest file. However this alone doesn't work - I have to copy the comm.jar to the same directory as my executable jar.
My question is why doesn't java use the system CLASSPATH variable to find comm.jar? It doesn't seem right that I need a second copy of comm.jar in the current directory.

Answer 1

H:\Forte-Projects\MyProjects> echo %CLASSPATH%
.;H:\Java\j2sdk1.4.0\lib\comm.jarThen in main:
System.out.println("CLASSPATH=" + System.getProperty("java.class.path"));And the output is:
H:\Forte-Projects\MyProjects>java.exe Djava.rmi.server.codebase=file:/H:\Forte-projects\MyProjects\ISC_Knox.jar -Djava.security.policy=ISC_Knox.policy -jar ISC_Knox.jar
CLASSPATH=ISC_Knox.jarOr this:
H:\Forte-Projects\MyProjects>java.exe Djava.rmi.server.codebase=file:/H:\Forte-projects\MyProjects\ISC_Knox.jar -Djava.security.policy=ISC_Knox.policy -classpath %CLASSPATH%-jar ISC_Knox.jar
CLASSPATH=ISC_Knox.jar