Valid characters in a module name

[Ess Kay]

As far as I can tell, the complete string @"What a wonderful world!" is
itself a valid module, package, class, field and method name.  The '@'
character has a reserved status in a module name but the JVM spec says that
it may appear with some yet to be published meaning.  Almost every possible
string of printable characters is a valid module, package, class, field and
method name.  For example, the string \u0022\" is a valid 8 character Java
field or method name. The string \\u0022\\" is a valid 10 character Java
field or method name. So a solution that uses escape characters is not as
obvious as it may appear at first glance.You could even throw in a leading,
embedded and trailing space and it would still be valid.

I haven't yet tested this but, prima facie, even non-printable characters
such as backspaces and carriage returns are permitted in package, class,
field and method names (but not module names.)  Does the JVM support some
escaping scheme to allow such characters in JAR manifests and service
provider specifications? If the answer is yes then what is it?  If the
answer is no then doesn't  that demonstrates the absurdity of the situation?

So at this point Alan's suggested initial 'do nothing' approach is
attractive. At this point the flexibility that the JVM spec gives is
totally gratuitous in that no one as yet appears to have had any reason to
make use of it.

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 8:45 AM, Peter Levart <peter.levart at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Ess,
>
>
> On 01/06/2017 05:27 AM, Ess Kay wrote:
>
> chances of meeting a module-info.class with funky module names is low
>
> When I raised the initial question, I had no idea that the Java verifier
> had been changed (with Java 6?) to allow "funky" package, class, field and
> method names. Somehow that change passed right under the radar. Yes - a
> possible option would be to simply ignore the broad character range allowed
> by the JVM specification and trust that in practice no one would actually
> use the usual characters in package, class, field, method or module names.
> A downside to that option is that we will no longer be able to say to our
> users that we fully support the JVM specification which in some cases can
> be a problem. Anyway, I guess it is time to accept the overwhelming inertia
> of the status quo and move on to the next problem.
>
>
> If I remember correctly, there was a crazy proposal in the past to specify
> a syntax for arbitrary symbol names in Java. It went roughly like:
>
> @"the syntax of Java string in here"
>
>
> So you could write code like:
>
>
> public class @"What a wonderful world!" {
>     public static void @"Let's party..."() {
>     }
> }
>
> //
> @"What a wonderful world!".@"Let's party..."();
>
>
> You could adopt this in your tool, what do you think?
>
> Regards, Peter
>
>