java classpath: what does it mean?

The classpath tells Java where to look in the filesystem for files defining these classes.

So, the classpath looks like this:

CLASSPATH=.:/opt/jdk1.7.0_45/lib/dt.jar:/opt/jdk1.7.0_45/lib/rootls.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-ant-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-examples-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-tools-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-client-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-minicluster-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-core-1.2.1.jar:/opt/hadoop-1.2.1/hadoop-test-1.2.1.jar

It's different to the file path without filename, the CLASSPATH should ended by a file with extension ".jar"!!!