RFE to re-purpose option --version:<version>

[Paul Benedict]

Claes, thanks for your feedback. My comments to your comments:

1. I like your alternate name.
2. I am in no position to agree or disagree. I'll take your word.
3. It is no less "limiting the usefulness" than any of the new options
being introduced in 9. Yes, limited, but no more limited than they too.

Cheers,
Paul

On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Claes Redestad <claes.redestad at oracle.com>
wrote:

> Opinions!
>
> 1. --version:9 is ambiguous, maybe --require-version=9 would be better...
> 2. ... but it still doesn't seem worth the hours of testing, maintenance
> and subsequent bug-fixing for this niche use case
> 3. ... and even if it did get in there'd be a very long time until all
> versions of java installed will have the flag, limiting the usefulness for
> years to come, forcing scripts to workaround using, say, java -fullversion
> anyhow
>
> Thanks!
>
> /Claes
>
>
> On 2016-08-09 16:13, Paul Benedict wrote:
>
>> Kumar, thank you for that information. I find that useful too. Now with
>> regard to this email's proposal, are there any further opinions? If this
>> has merit, I would appreciate if someone could create a ticket for
>> consideration?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Paul
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 4:20 PM, Kumar Srinivasan <
>> kumar.x.srinivasan at oracle.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Paul,
>>>
>>> There is a light weight method to get the version from the launcher,
>>> "-fullversion" noting that, this does not invoke the VM, and obtains
>>> the version string set at build time in the launcher itself.
>>>
>>> However you would have to exec java twice, once to get the version,
>>> another to invoke it.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Kumar
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Committers,
>>>
>>>> In Java 9, the --version:<version> has been deprecated. The error
>>>> message
>>>> returned to me is:
>>>>
>>>> Error: Specifying an alternate JDK/JRE version is no longer supported.
>>>>     The use of the flag '-version:' is no longer valid.
>>>>     Please download and execute the appropriate version.
>>>> Unrecognized option: -version:9
>>>>
>>>> I am happy with that. This is not a complain on removing that
>>>> "alternate"
>>>> feature.
>>>>
>>>> However, I would like to propose bringing back the option with a
>>>> different
>>>> purpose. I would like to use --version:<version> as a validation check.
>>>> I
>>>> want Java to execute ONLY if the version specified matches the actual
>>>> platform version. This would be a wonderful help to scripts that
>>>> require a
>>>> particular version of the Java platform, and should fail if the
>>>> environment
>>>> has been accidentally setup with the wrong Java platform version.
>>>>
>>>> Examples:
>>>> java --version:9
>>>> java --version:9.1
>>>>
>>>> AFAICT, the only way to do this now is to execute Java twice. Once to
>>>> pipe
>>>> --version to some find/grep command and check return code, and then
>>>> execute
>>>> java again if the check pass. Loading the runtime twice is not optimal,
>>>> wouldn't you agree? Yet if you agree to this proposal, it would be a big
>>>> win for script writers, I believe.
>>>>
>>>> Opinions please. Thank you.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>