Step-by-step: Download, Install, and Setup Java for ‘R’ Projects

The basics of using rJavaEnv are covered in the Quick Start Guide, which demonstrates how to install Java in one line of code. This guide will show you how to have a more fine-grained control over your Java environment.

library(rJavaEnv)

Assume your project directory is currently in a temporary directory. Feel free to skip that, if you are already working in a desired project directory where you would like to install Java. In the example outputs below you will see paths that point to a temporary directory, but in a real project you would see your project directory instead.

project_dir <- tempdir()
setwd(project_dir)

1. Set-up cache folder location

You can specify the cache folder location with the rJavaEnv.cache_path option.

options(rJavaEnv.cache_path = "/path/to/your/desired/cache/folder")

By default the location would be set to whichever path is returned by tools::R_user_dir("rJavaEnv", which = "cache"). The exact path will depend on the operating system. Our recommendation is to leave this option at it’s default setting. This is similar to how renv package manages the cache for R packages.

You can view the current cache location with:

getOption("rJavaEnv.cache_path")

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

"C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv"

Expected output (on a macOS machine):

"/Users/user_name/Library/Caches/org.R-project.R/R/rJavaEnv"

2. Download Java JDK distributions

To download a specific Java distribution, use the java_download function:

java_17_distr <- java_download(version = 17)
java_17_distr

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

Detected platform: windows
Detected architecture: x64
You can change the platform and architecture by specifying the `platform` and `arch` arguments.
Downloading Java 17 (Corretto) for windows x64 to C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-17-x64-windows-jdk.zip
 [100%] Downloaded 187323560 bytes...
Download completed.
MD5 checksum verified.
[1] "C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-17-x64-windows-jdk.zip"

This function will download the specified version of Java JDK (currently defaults to the only supported Corretto distribution by Amazon, more will be added in new package releases).

The function returns the path to the downloaded distribution file, which is just a zip or gz archive.

By default, if no cache_path is specified when calling java_download(), the distribution is downloaded into the folder defined by getOption("rJavaEnv.cache_path"). So with this argument you can override the globally set cache folder location for this single download.

java_download() also allows you to define the operating system and processor architecture with function arguments platform and arch (please see the function documentation using ?rJavaEnv::java_download). For example, this may be useful if you are packaging a Java distribution for Linux while using a Windows or macOS machine. This may also be useful if for some reason automatic OS and CPU detection fails.

For example, this line above will download the Amazon Corretto Java JDK version 8 for x86-64 Linux, even though you may be running this code on aarch64 macOS or x86_64 Windows machine:

java_8_linux64_distr <- java_download(
  version = 8,
  platform = "linux",
  arch = "x64"
)

Example expected output (on a Windows machine):

Detected platform: linux
Detected architecture: x64
You can change the platform and architecture by specifying the `platform` and `arch` arguments.
Downloading Java 8 (Corretto) for linux x64 to C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-8-x64-linux-jdk.tar.gz
 [100%] Downloaded 118096667 bytes...
Download completed.
MD5 checksum verified.

3. Manage downloaded Java JDK distributions

You can manage downloaded distributions with the java_list and java_clear functions.

java_list("distrib")

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

java_distr_path
1 C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-17-x64-windows-jdk.zip
2 C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-21-x64-windows-jdk.zip
3 C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-8-x64-linux-jdk.tar.gz

java_clear("distrib")

Example expected output (on a Windows machine):

i Existing Java distributions:
1: C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-17-x64-windows-jdk.zip
2: C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-21-x64-windows-jdk.zip
3: C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/distrib/amazon-corretto-8-x64-linux-jdk.tar.gz
i Enter the number of the distribution to delete, 'all' to delete all, or '0' or any other character to cancel:

You can also delete all downloaded distributions without consent with:

java_clear("distrib", delete_all = TRUE)

Example expected output:

Java distributions cache cleared.

4. Install from downloaded Java JDK distributions

As we have cleared all downloaded Java distributions, let us re-download a few of them:

java_8_distr <- java_download(8)
java_17_distr <- java_download(17)
java_22_distr <- java_download(22)

Now that we have downloaded the Java distributions, we can install any one of them into the project. Installation in the context of rJavaEnv means extracting the distribution into the installed cache folder (which is in the same root cache directory as the zip archives of the distributions), and linking the files (via symlinks in macOS and Linux, and junctions in Windows¹). If we set the autoset_java_env argument to FALSE we will need to set the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables manually.

java_install(
  java_distrib_path = java_17_distr,
  autoset_java_env = FALSE)

Example expected output (on a Windows machine):

Java 17 (amazon-corretto-17-x64-windows-jdk.zip) for windows x64 installed at C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/17 and symlinked to
C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17

If we did leave autoset_java_env = TRUE which is a default option, install_java() function would automatically set the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables manually in both the current R session and in the current project/working directory by writing a few lines into the .Rprofile file in the current working directory. This way each time you would start an R session, the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables would be set to the correct path to the installed Java distribution.

5. Manually set installed Java environment

Let us install another downloaded Java distribution, this time with autoset_java_env = TRUE:

java_install(
  java_distrib_path = java_8_distr,
  autoset_java_env = TRUE)

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

Java distribution amazon-corretto-8-x64-windows-jdk.zip already unpacked at C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8
v Current R Session: JAVA_HOME and PATH set to C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8
v Current R Project/Working Directory: JAVA_HOME and PATH set to 'C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8' in .Rprofile at 'C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/R
tmp0MasTW'
Java 8 (amazon-corretto-8-x64-windows-jdk.zip) for windows x64 installed at C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8 and symlinked to
C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/8

We can now list the Java versions installed in the project directory:

java_list("project")

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

path platform arch version
1 C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17  windows  x64      17
2  C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/8  windows  x64       8

We first installed Java 17 with autoset_java_env = FALSE, and then installed Java 8 with autoset_java_env = TRUE. If we check which version is currently set as the JAVA_HOME environment variable, we would get the second installed Java version, which is Java 8.

java_check_version_cmd()

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

JAVA_HOME: C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8
Java path: /c/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/R/cache/R/rJavaEnv/installed/windows/x64/8/bin/java
Java version: "openjdk version \"1.8.0_422\" OpenJDK Runtime Environment Corretto-8.422.05.1 (build 1.8.0_422-b05) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Corretto-8.422.05.1 (build 25.422-b05, mixed mode)"
[1] TRUE

To switch to Java 17 we need to manually set the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables with java_env_set(). To identify which path to pass to java_env_set(), we can use the java_list("project") function again:

java_list("project")

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

path platform arch version
1 C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17  windows  x64      17
2  C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/8  windows  x64       8

As we can see, the Java 17 is currently number 1 in this list, so we save this path:

java_home_17 <- java_list("project", output = "vector")[1]
java_home_17

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

"C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17"

Now we can reuse this path in the java_env_set() function:

java_env_set(where = "both", java_home = java_home_17)

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

v Current R Session: JAVA_HOME and PATH set to C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17
v Current R Project/Working Directory: JAVA_HOME and PATH set to 'C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17' in .Rprofile at 'C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/R
tmp0MasTW'

And finally we can double check which version of Java is going to be picked up by the Java/rJava-dependent R package that you are going to use with:

java_check_version_cmd() # for pacakges that use Java via commandline, like opentripplanner
java_check_version_rjava() # for packages that use Java via `rJava`, like r5r

Expected output (on a Windows machine):

JAVA_HOME: C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17
Java path: /c/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17/bin/java
Java version: "openjdk version \"17.0.12\" 2024-07-16 LTS OpenJDK Runtime Environment Corretto-17.0.12.7.1 (build 17.0.12+7-LTS) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Corretto-17.0.12.7.1 (build
17.0.12+7-LTS, mixed mode, sharing)"
[1] TRUE

Using current session's JAVA_HOME: C:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Temp/75/Rtmp0MasTW/rjavaenv/windows/x64/17
With the user-specified JAVA_HOME rJava and other rJava/Java-based packages will use Java version: "17.0.12"
[1] TRUE