I installed java to run a program and put it in the PATH.. program ran fine. When I went back later it said java command not found..

I put it in the path again.. same thing, it worked once then stopped.

Im putting it the path with the following command:

export PATH=/home/name/j2re1.3.1/bin:$PATH

any ideas?

you should add the export line you wrote to /etc/profile file at the end, so every user who is loged into the system will have the same chunk of it. If you'd like to keep it only to a particular user add the java bin directory to $PATH in .bash_profile file in the users home directory. Don't forget to run
source /etc/bashprofile
or
source .bash_profile
to make changes happen immediatly.

Im having a problem getting it in my etc/profile file.. And in my .bash_profile.

What code would I put in?

as root open for editing /etc/profile file
i am not using GUI editors so I can't tell you wich one is better, if you work from console and not famiiar with emacs, vi or any other console editors, I found the easiest to use for a newbie is pico
in console as root type
pico /etc/profile

It will open the file in console navigate by using arrow keys, go to the end and type

export PATH=/home/name/j2re1.3.1/bin:$PATH
save the file ( in pico hit ctrl-O and then ctrl-X to save and quit)
then from the console as root run

source /etc/profile
as a non-root run the same command to make changes for non-root user who currently logged in (yourself)
it will make the PATH permanent for you as root and for you as yourself on the system

Got it working, thanks

No problems