# How Do I: Create and Debug a Java Class?

WebLogic Workshop is a full-featured Java development environment, and you can use it to build and debug Java classes. If you are building an application comprised of Java classes, you can create a Java project.

To Create a New Java Class

1. If you are starting from an existing Workshop application, add a new Java project. Select the application name in the Application pane, right-click, and choose New-->Project. In the New Project dialog, select Java Project, enter a name for your new project, and click Create. If you do not already have a Workshop application, create a new empty application by choosing File-->New-->Application. In the New Application dialog, select Empty Application and enter a name for the new application. Once you've created it, add a new Java project.
2. Create the package structure for your Java class or classes by creating folders within the Java project. You can create a Java class at the root level of the project or under a single folder, but if you intend to package the class you may want to adhere to a naming standard so that others can reference your class without namespace conflicts. For example, to fully qualify your class com.mycompany.myproject.myclass, you would create a hierarchy of folders com, mycompany, and myproject to contain myclass.
3. To debug your class, it needs to have a main() method. Add the main() method to your class so that it looks like the following example:

      package com.mycompany.myproject;

      public class myclass
      {
        public static void main (String[] args)
        {
          System.out.println("Hello world");
        }
      }

4. Before you can run and debug your class, you need to set some debugging properties. In the Application pane, select your Java project. Right-click and choose Properties. In the Project Properties dialog, select the Debugger tab.
5. Under Debugger Options, select the Build before debugging option if it's not already selected.
6. Under Create new process settings, set the Main class field to point to the class containing the main() method. Following the above example, you would set the Main class field to com.mycompany.myproject.myclass.
7. If you want to pass parameters to the main() method at runtime, you can set the Parameters field to a list of quote-delimited string arguments, separated by spaces.
8. After you close the Project Properties dialog, you can set breakpoints within your class, and click the Start button to execute and step through your code.

## Related Topics

Applications and Projects

Debugging Your Application