why i am getting the following error while running javac command from console

C:\>javac
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/sun/tools/javac
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.tools.javac.Main
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)

Send the source code that you are compiling. May be mistake in defining a class.

Send the source code that you are compiling. May be mistake in defining a class.

javac is a command that compiles a code to be compiled. for example: javac code.java. then there is java. for example java code. that for contrast, runs the code ;D

But if it's having problems compiling, then wouldn't it not work at runtime?

no - he's saying that typing 'javac' alone into the prompt isn't productive. add the name of the file

javac mycode.java