PATH Vs. CLASSPATH settings

[Richa Jeetah]

How is Path differnt from classpath settings...
do they conflict in any way?
i am trying to run a java program which tries to load jdbc driver
my path is set to: PATH=h:\jdk1.3.1_01\bin
and classpath to:
set CLASSPATH=K:\oracle\ora90\jdbc\lib\classes12.zip;K:\oracle\ora90\jdbc\lib\nls_charset11.zip
if i am right assuming that my dreiver are in : classes12.zip
note oracle is in K: drive and my jdk in H: drive
when i do not set the classpath and run a simple program which outputs a srting it runs alright...BUT... when i set the classpath var my program does not run, tough it compiles fine...
it gives following error on running:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:simpleprogram
but if i do not set the classpath ... simple porgrams run fine but the jdbc programs give couple of other errors.... saying no such pacages exist...like oracle.jdbc.driver.*
I am very confused!
please help !!
[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Richa Jeetah ]

[David Duran]

This might be of some help: http://www.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=33&t=004858
BTW, classes12.zip is also one of the files I needed in my classpath so my batch files specify this:
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.\lib\classes12.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.\lib\log4j-1.2beta4.jar
Of course just change the path to your zips and jars.
---
Path is where you can specify a directory containing executables (exe, com, bat, etc) and not have to put the full path to them on the command line. It's kind of like the import in Java. If you import a package, you can simply reference a class within the package as opposed to the fully qualified class name. Likewise, if you specifiy a Path to javac.exe you can simply type:
C:\>javac blah.java instead of
c:\jdk1.4\bin\javac blah.java
[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: David Duran ]