Need reviewers and comments: 6989472: Provide simple jdk identification information in the install image

[David Holmes]

Kelly O'Hair said the following on 12/02/10 07:26:
> On Dec 1, 2010, at 12:56 PM, Ulf Zibis wrote:
>> But yes, those scenarios could be improved, but IMHO smarter with 
>> something like "java -version:java", (or interpreting the existing 
>> "java -version" output, like Eclipse does), ... and - more important - 
>> would it solve the original problem, i.e. checking if some exotic 
>> option is available.
>> And think about future changes about another exotic parameters. Would 
>> vm.name=hotspot + jdk.java.version=1.7.0 be enough to serve this?
>>...
> I'm obviously not communicating very well.
> 
> I don't want to run 'java' because I might not be able to, and I don't 
> want to use some platform specific api
> to dig into binaries that may be located at any number of locations.
> I'm looking for a very simple text file way to identify what I kind of 
> jdk image I have.

Exactly. The whole Eclipse problem that motivated this stemmed from the 
fact that they wanted a way to identify the JVM, given a "java" command, 
without having to launch the VM and parse some version output. This is 
what this simple file aims to do.

But I'm inclined to think that this isn't worth the effort any more, 
particularly as all it does is open a can of worms regarding what info 
different environments might want about the VM - and given the original 
problem that motivated this is moot for a number of reasons.

David

> 
> There are numerous ways to determine this as you point out, but none 
> that remove the native binary execution,
> or grokking around inside binary files.
> 
> -kto
> 
>>
>> -Ulf
>>
>>
>