Dfyjkt

I am trying to create an application that can compile a provided .java file during runtime. I understand that there is a programmatical compiler available within the tools.jar of the JDK. However, I cannot guarantee that the user of the application has JDK. I have attempted to package tools.jar within the application and reference it as a library. This seems to work within the Eclipse IDE when I have tools.jar added into the Bootstrap Entries of the classpath. When exporting the application to a runnable jar (with tools.jar packaged with it),
ToolProvider.getSystemJavaCompiler(); returns null. I am not exactly sure what the issue is, but I believe it may have to do with the Bootstrap Entries of the classpath not being properly preserved when the application is exported to a runnable jar. Any ideas? Are there any alternatives to the tools.jar compiler that I could use? Thanks for your patience, as this is my first question posted here!

You need to use the compiler within "tools.jar"

ToolProvider.getSystemJavaCompiler()

will return the compiler from the jdk defined in the path variable,
you can do this instead:

File file = new File(pathToToolsJar);
URL urls = new URL file.toURI().toURL() ;
ClassLoader loader = new URLClassLoader(urls);
Class compilerClass = loader.loadClass("com.sun.tools.javac.api.JavacTool");
JavaCompiler compiler = (JavaCompiler) compilerClass.getConstructor().newInstance();

Or you can add tools.jar as a library at compile time

import com.sun.tools.javac.api.JavacTool;
...
JavaCompiler compiler = new JavacTool();

Or you can change System properties, but that leads to unexpected behaviors