RFR: 8318913: The module-infos for --release data do not contain pre-set versions

[Joe Darcy]

On Thu, 9 Nov 2023 10:55:06 GMT, Jan Lahoda <jlahoda at openjdk.org> wrote:

>> Consider a simple module, like:
>> 
>> module test {}
>> 
>> 
>> And compile it with JDK 22 and JDK 21 using:
>> javac --release 21
>> 
>> The results of the compilations will differ: when compiling with JDK 21, the mandated java.base dependency will get a version, possibly like "21-internal". When compiling with JDK 22, the version of the java.base dependency will be empty.
>> 
>> This is a) because `module-info.class`es in `ct.sym` do not have any module version set; b) for JDK N, `--release N` is not using `ct.sym`, but rather `lib/modules`, which may contain a range of version specifiers.
>> 
>> This patch does two changes:
>> a) tweaks the `module-info.class`es in `ct.sym`, so that they contain a simple version. For `--release N`, the version is `N`.
>> b) tweaks the whole build so that `ct.sym` is used always for `--release`, a `lib/modules` is never used. I.e. the appropriate classfiles are copied into `ct.sym`. This not only allows for a general approach to module versions, but simplifies the `--release` handling in javac, and should enable future improvements. This is, however, a relatively big change.
>> 
>> The use of `lib/modules` for `--release <current>` was made to improve build performance, but the build has been updated since this has been introduced, so the slowdown caused by rebuilding `ct.sym` should be much lower now.
>> 
>> With these changes, compiling with `--release N` should record the same dependency versions in `module-info` on JDK N and JDK N + 1.
>
> Thanks for the comments so far. I have locally added the pre-release text to the module versions and merged recent Erik's changes. I'll push the updated version in a few hours.

@lahodaj, should this change get a CSR to cover the behavioral changes?

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PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/16400#issuecomment-1804293641