java -version output for JDK8

[Steven R. Loomis]

On 25/07/13 18:21, Kumar Srinivasan wrote:
> On 7/25/2013 6:05 PM, Steven R. Loomis wrote:
>> On 7/25/13 4:26 p.m., Omair Majid wrote:
>>> Hi Kumar,
>>>
>>> On 07/25/2013 07:05 PM, Kumar Srinivasan wrote:
>>>> Changing any of these lines is very painful, because too many
>>>> scripts and tests have made assumptions on these lines, and some of
>>>> these are System properties which are baked at build time.
>>> I am looking at it from the users' point of view. Oracle (proprietary)
>>> JDKs claim to be "java version..." as do IBM (proprietary) JDKs. Isn't
>>> openjdk the odd one out if it claims to be "openjdk version..."?
>>>
>>> I also think it will be much more painful for all our users to have to
>>> fix their scripts and tests if any of those scripts or tests happen to
>>> rely on the output of "java -version". Fixing our tests and scripts
>>> would surely be less painful.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Omair
>> I note that "java -XshowSettings" prints out all sorts of info in a
>> structured format.  Scripts might want to use this if possible.
>
> you do it at your own risk.
> fyi:
>
> % java -X
> .......
> .....
>     -XshowSettings:locale
>                       show all locale related settings and continue
>
> The -X options are non-standard and subject to change without notice.

That's a good point.

Would it be worth having a *standard* sort of output with this same 
content? At least something that output key value pairs, even if the 
exact set of pairs wasn't standardized.

-s