asdf-java

Java plugin for the asdf version manager.

Requirements

• bash v5.0
• curl
• sha256sum (only on Linux)
• unzip
• jq (only for updating the release data)

Install

asdf plugin-add java https://github.com/halcyon/asdf-java.git

Use

Check asdf for instructions on how to install & manage versions of Java.

Install

List candidate JDKs:

asdf list-all java

Install a candidate listed from the previous command like this:

asdf install java adoptopenjdk-11.0.16+8

Setting a version

Select an installed candidate for use like this:

asdf global java adoptopenjdk-11.0.16+8

or just for the local directory

asdf local java adoptopenjdk-11.0.16+8

Latest

If you just want the latest of a major version (without worrying about the patch number), install it like this:

asdf install java latest:adoptopenjdk-11

Similarly, you can set the global/local version. The latest tag will resolve to the most recent version.

Running asdf local java latest:adoptopenjdk-11 will result in the following:

$ cat .tool-versions
java adoptopenjdk-11.0.16+8

JAVA_HOME

To set JAVA_HOME in your shell's initialization add the following:

. ~/.asdf/plugins/java/set-java-home.bash

For zsh shell, instead use:

. ~/.asdf/plugins/java/set-java-home.zsh

For fish shell, instead use:

. ~/.asdf/plugins/java/set-java-home.fish

For nushell shell, instead use:

source ~/.asdf/plugins/java/set-java-home.nu

For xonsh shell, instead use:

source ~/.asdf/plugins/java/set-java-home.xsh

macOS

JAVA_HOME integration

Some applications in macOS use /usr/libexec/java_home to set java home.

Setting java_macos_integration_enable to yes on .asdfrc file enables this integration.

java_macos_integration_enable=yes

Note: Not all distributions of Java JDK packages offer this integration (e.g. liberica). This option only works for packages that do offer that integration.

Apple Silicon integration

If you have an Apple Silicon mac, then you can choose to run either an arm64 JVM natively, or an x86_64 JVM under Rosetta translation. If you run the command arch, it will print either arm64 (which means you are running natively) or x86_64 (which means you are running under Rosetta translation).

When you run asdf list all java, it lists only the VMs which are available for the architecture you are currently running under. To switch your terminal from native ARM to Rosetta use arch -x86_64 /bin/zsh.