JFreeChart Installation

This chapter takes you through the process of setting up JFreeChart on Windows and Linux. User administration is needed while installing the JFreeChart. The JFreeChart is famous for its efficient chart creation, and user-friendly installation setup.

System Requirements :

JDK	1.5 or above
Memory	2GB RAM
Disk Space	No minimum requirement
Operating System Version	Linux or Windows

Installing JFreeChart

To install JFreeChart, first you need to install Java on your system.

Step1: Verifying Java Installation

To verify Java installation, open the console and execute the following java command :

Os	Task	Command
Windows	Open command console	C:>java -version
Linux	Open command terminal	$java -version

If Java installation is done properly, then you should get the following output for both the operating systems :

OS	Description
Windows	Java version "1.7.0_60" Java (TM) SE Run Time Environment (build 1.7.0_60-b19) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-bit Server VM (build 24.60-b09,mixed mode)
Linux	java version "1.7.0_25" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.3.10.4.el6_4-x86_64) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.7-b01, mixed mode)

If you do not have Java installed, then install the Java Software Development Kit (SDK) from the link:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
We assume that you have installed Java 1.7.0_60 version before proceeding for this tutorial.

Step 2: Setting JAVA Environment

Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the base directory location where Java is installed on your machine. For example,

Os	Description
Windows	Set Environmental varible JAVA_HOME to C:\ProgramFiles\java\jdk1.7.0_60
Linux	export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java-current

Append Java compiler location to System Path.

OS	Description
Windows	Append the String; C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_60\bin to the end of the system variable PATH.
Linux	export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin/

Verify the command java -version from command prompt as explained above

Step3: Installing JFreeChart

Download the latest version of JFreeChart.zip from the link http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/download/ Unzip the downloaded file at any location from where required libraries can be linked into your Java program. The following image shows the structure of the directories and files :
Add complete path of jfreechart-1.0.18.jar and jcommon-1.0.22.jar files to the CLASSPATH as shown below :

OS	Description
Windows	Append the Strings “C:\ jfreechart-1.0.18\lib\ jfreechart-1.0.18.jar” and “C:\ jfreechart-1.0.18\lib\ jcommon-1.0.22.jar” to the end of the user variable CLASSPATH
Linux	Export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH: /usr/share/jfreechart-1.0.18/lib/jfreechart-1.0.18.jar: /usr/share/jfreechart-1.0.18/lib/jcommon-1.0.22.jar