[1] RFR(XXS): 8197927: Can't set mandatory 'java.vendor.version' property to empty string

[Volker Simonis]

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 7:02 PM, <mark.reinhold at oracle.com> wrote:

> 2018/2/14 8:04:15 -0800, volker.simonis at gmail.com:
> > On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 4:26 PM, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
> >> This is a bug in the specification, not the implementation.  As I just
> >> wrote in a comment on 8197927:
> >>
> >> JEP 322 expresses the intended behavior: If `--with-vendor-version` is
> >> not specified at build time then the `java.vendor.version` property has
> >> no value.  (That's different from the empty string, which is a value.)
> >> The bug is in the specification, which should be revised so as not to
> >> require that this property have a value.  Fixing the spec is not
> >> critical for 10; I suggest downgrading 8197927 to P2 and targeting 11.
> >
> > What you mean by "not require the 'java.vendor.version' property to
> > have a value"? We can not set a system property to NULL because
> > System.setProperty() will throw a NPE in that case. So either the
> > specification requires 'java.vendor.version' as mandatory (as it is
> > now) in which case it does need to have a value different from NULL.
> > Or we change the specification such that 'java.vendor.version' isn't a
> > mandatory property any more. But it is not possible to have
> > 'java.vendor.version' as mandatory property with "no value" as
> > envisioned by the JEP.
>
> Of course it's possible.  The specification need merely say that
> `java.vendor.version` is a standard system property that may, or may
> not, have a value.  (Or, if you like, whose value may be `null`.)
>
>
Sorry but I still don't get it. Do you agree that you can't assign NULL to
a system property because you'll get a NPE?

You could of course not assign it at all (as it is done now) in which case
System.getProperty("java.vendor.version") would return NULL. But that means
"it is not defined" which is different from "is has no value". You can
still call System.getProperties().containsKey​("java.vendor.version") and
it would return false which violates that specification because it mandates
that a property with the "java.vendor.version" exists.

Or am I missing something?

> Do you propose to change the specification such that
> > 'java.vendor.version' isn't a mandatory property any more? That would
> > be fine for me and I agree that we could target this bug to 11 if
> > that's what you propose. We could actually list "java.vendor.version"
> > under "Implementation Note:" which contains some additional,
> > non-mandatory properties.
>
> It'd be a standard property, not an implementation-specific property.
>
> Feel free to reassign 8197927 to me and I'll fix it in 11, since it was
> my oversight in the first place.
>
> - Mark
>