title: Cannot find class even when jar file is in working directory
body: <p>I am struggling to get my Java program to run on AIX. I used Eclipse on Windows to create a runnable Jar file, <code>jRams.jar</code> below. I kept on getting a class not found error, until finally I put all the external libraries in the same directory.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ ls
  JAXB2_20081030.jar
  JAXB2_20110601.jar
  activation.jar
  asjava.jar
  commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar
  commons-beanutils-bean-collections-1.8.3.jar
  commons-beanutils-core-1.8.3.jar
  commons-codec-1.5.jar
  commons-collections-3.2.1.jar
  commons-configuration-1.6.jar
  commons-digester-2.1.jar
  commons-jxpath-1.3.jar
  commons-lang-2.6.jar
  commons-logging-1.1.1.jar
  commons-logging-adapters-1.1.1.jar
  commons-logging-api-1.1.1.jar
  jRams.jar
  jaxb-api.jar
  jaxb-impl.jar
  jaxb-xjc.jar
  jaxb1-impl.jar
  jremote.jar
  jsr173_1.0_api.jar
  log4j-1.2.16.jar
  netty-3.2.4.Final.jar
  $
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Still, I get the class not found error.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ java -jar jRams.jar
  The java class is not found:  com.jbase.jremote.JRemoteException
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><code>jremote.jar</code> definitely contains JRemoteException. Why isn't this working?</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>Thank you for your straight-to-the-point answers. I now understand the nature of a java application and a manifest file far better.</p>
  
  <p>Turns out my ftp client was transferring in ASCII mode and not Binary, so the jar files were corrupt. I have learned a great deal, nonetheless.</p>