You can not just point  CLASSPATH to a directory and expect to load
classes from all "*.jar" s lying there.

If you point your CLASSPATH to a directory, only *.class -es in that
directory will be loaded from that path.

If you are too irritated by this is or think that the tools that help
you in such situations(ant script/shell scripts) are not good enough -
you can try the following:

 Extract all your classes out of *.jars and keep under some common
folder( say, $HOME/java/lib) preserving their directory structure.
Now if you point to this directory($HOME/java/lib) in CLASSPATH all
your library classes will be picked up- this is a work around but not a
rare one.

HTH
RC

Using ANT might help you a lot with setting the class path with a bunch
of .jar files from folder(s). For instance :

<classpath>
   <fileset dir="someJarFolder">
       <include name="**/*.jar" />
   </fileset>
   <fileset dir="someOtherJarFolder">
       <include name="**/*.jar" />
   </fileset>
</classpath>

You could also simply use a script that sets the CLASSPATH environment
variable with all the zips/jars inside a(many) folder(s).
On Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, I allways use this _setcp.bat script in
this way :

Where _setcp.bat goes like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@echo off

set CLASSPATH=.

call :setall %*
goto end

if .%1.==.. goto end
set dir=%1
set dir=%dir:"=%
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;%dir%
for %%i in ("%dir%\*.jar") do call :setone "%%i"
for %%i in ("%dir%\*.zip") do call :setone "%%i"
shift
goto setall

set file=%1
set file=%file:"=%
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;%file%

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You could do the same on Unices

Regards