Main Class Not Found Problem

[shadow]

Hello. I haven't done much Java programming for a few years and have recently installed the Java 6 SDK. I cant seem to figure out how to fix this problem though. It works fine under Java 5. Here is the error.

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_16\bin>java "z:\java_stuff\SwingExample.class"
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: z:\java_stuff\SwingEx
ample/class
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: z:\java_stuff\SwingExample.class
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:200)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
        at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:252)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:320)
Could not find the main class: z:\java_stuff\SwingExample.class.  Program will e
xit.

Here is the actual Java code. Just a simple JFrame example.

import java.awt.*; 
import javax.swing.*;
 
/**
 * Basic Swing example.
 */
public class SwingExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Create a JFrame, which is a Window with "decorations", 
        // i.e. title, border and close-button
        JFrame f = new JFrame("Swing Example Window");
 
        // Set a simple Layout Manager that arranges the Components
        f.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
 
        // Add a label
        f.add(new JLabel("Hello world!"));
 
        // "Pack" the window, making it "just big enough".
        f.pack();
 
        // Set the default close operation for the window, 
        // or else the program won't exit when clicking close button
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
 
        // Set the visibility as true, thereby displaying it
        f.setVisible(true);
    }
}

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Edit: Forgot to mention but it compiles just fine and the class and filename match.

Edit: Finally found the problem.

[Json]

Please mark as solved

// Json

[JavaPF]

Hello shadow,

Welcome to the Java Programming Forums.

What was the solution?

[shadow]

The classpath needed to be set. It's been so long since I've worked on anything non-PHP I forgot to set the environment variable. Now that I think of it, I believe I might have had my files on the same drive partition as java before so that is probably why it wasn't an issue before.