When setting CLASSPATH in the Panther initialization file, the max number of characters is 273. If the limit exceeds, Panther will not start up. An alternative is to use SMJVMOPT in your ini file. See example below for Windows:
SMJVMOPT=-Djava.ext.dirs="C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_144/jre/lib/ext;C:/Windows/Sun/Java/lib/ext;C:/app/jars;C:/Prolifics/Panther5.53.07/config;C:/Prolifics/Panther5.53.07/samples/auth0/jsonUtils/ext-jars"
SMJVMOPT is a Panther-specific INI-file variable that specifies options for the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) launched by Panther. -Djava.ext.dirs is an option that can be used within the value for SMJVMOPT to define the java.ext.dirs JVM variable. This variable specifies a set of paths in which the JVM's extension mechanism should search for JAR files and other file types that are required for class loading."
When using this variable a few things need to be kept in mind:
Use forward slashes to separate the folders in a path as shown above; or use double back slashes to separate the folders in a path as below:
SMJVMOPT=-Djava.ext.dirs="C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk1.8.0_144\\jre\\lib\\ext;C:\\Windows\\Sun\\Java\\lib\\ext;C:\\app\\jars; C:\\Prolifics\\Panther5.53.07\\config; C:\\Prolifics\\Panther5.53.07\\samples\\auth0\\jsonUtils\\ext-jars"
If the folder name contains spaces then quotes must be used around them; "C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_144/jre/lib/ext”
To learn more about SMJVMOPT see https://docs.prolifics.com/panther/html/stu_html/ejbmach.htm
For more JVM options see https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/tools/windows/java.html#CBBIJCH
