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Setting up your enterprise Java environment

Setting up your enterprise Java environment

watsonx Code Assistant Standard plan

If you're using the Standard plan and want to work with enterprise Java applications, you need to set up your environment for your IDE.

Visual Studio Code setup

Java requirements

The requirements to use watsonx Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications in Visual Studio Code are:

System requirements
Item Details
Java Java SE 11 with Java Developer Kit 11, or a later version
Maven Use Maven to build your application

Set environment variables

Set up your environment variables.

JAVA_HOME

Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable the same way that you do for Maven. Set it to the JDK directory that contains the /bin directory so that your Java executable file is in the $JAVA_HOME/bin/java path.

You can set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to build your application at a different version, for example, Java 11.

PATH

Set the PATH environment variable to include the mvn executable file.

  • Windows: mvn.cmd
  • macOS: mvn

If you use the Visual Studio Code terminal to set the environment variables, you need to restart Visual Studio Code to apply the changes.

For macOS operating systems, the environment variables might not be set as expected when you run Eclipse. To fix the problem, you can restart Eclipse through the Finder tool by right-clicking your Eclipse application and choosing Show Package Contents. Enter the newly displayed Contents folder, select MacOS, and then run Eclipse by clicking the executable code.

Determining the Java developer kit

For Visual Studio Code, if you are using the Extension Pack for Java, watsonx Code Assistant determines the Java developer kit to use in this order of precedence:

Java developer kit order
Order of precedence Description
1 Globally-configured Java developer kit for automatic building in the Red Hat extension, which is java.configuration.runtimes in the IDE settings.json file
2 java.jdt.ls.java.home or java.home IDE settings if they are present
3 JAVA_HOME system environment variable, or else JDK_HOME
4 The Java developer kit in the system PATH

When watsonx Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications features are used, such as Java modernization or upgrade, you can verify which Java developer kit is being used:

  1. In Visual Studio Code, click View, then click Output.

  2. In the Output view, use the dropdown menu to select WCA.

  3. Check for a message such as Using the Java developer kit that is defined in <location> to run watsonx Code Assistant components. The path is: <path>.

Set logging level

To adjust logging for the Visual Studio Code extension:

  1. In Visual Studio Code, open the extension settings for watsonx Code Assistant.

  2. In Wca: Log level, switch from the default of INFO to another setting such as WARN.

Eclipse IDE setup

Determining the Java installation

For Eclipse, the Java installation is determined in this order:

  • The installation that is configured in the project's build path
  • The default Java installation for the IDE

For application modernization and upgrade, the automated fixes use the Java developer kit installation that best matches the target Java version that you chose. You need to:

  1. Install the Java developer kit.
  2. In the Eclipse IDE settings, open the Java section and add the installation to the Installed JREs.

Maven setup

Make sure to use Maven to build your application.

Setting Maven on the path is optional. The Maven executable installation is determined in this order:

  • Check for a Maven Wrapper in the project
  • Check if mvn is available on the PATH
  • Generate a Maven Wrapper in the project root by using the default Maven version for the Eclipse IDE.