java alternatives - Change auto mode

Question

I have three JDKs installed, all needed for some projects I work on.

When I run sudo update-alternatives --config java I get the output:

There are 3 choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).

  Selection    Path                                     Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java   1074      auto mode
  1            /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-oracle/jre/bin/java   1073      manual mode
  2            /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java   1074      manual mode
  3            /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java   1072      manual mode

How could I make the option 3 (JDK 8) as the one selected in auto mode?

Answer 1

Make the priority of /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java higher that the rest to automatically enable it as default java binary.

You can do:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 1100

Here I have used priority value 1100, actually any value greater that 1074 would do.