os.arch "amd64" or "x86_64"?

[Scott Kovatch]

On Feb 6, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Michael McMahon wrote:

> Following from the last message, I just want to get opinions on this question.
> Currently, the os.arch system property is set to "amd64" in common with the
> other platforms (solaris, windows and Linux) when running on an amd64/x86_64 CPU.
> However, the property is set to "x86_64" in Apple's Java 6 runtime.
> 
> So, the question is, what/if any compatibility issues could there be, if we maintain
> this behavior? On the other hand there probably should be a good reason to change it
> so it's different from the other 64 bit platforms.

Web Start is the main area of compatibility that I know of. By changing it to 'amd64' developers would need to rev their JNLP files to handle the new value for os.arch on the Mac.

For bundled applications Apple supported per-architecture JVM options in the application's Info.plist, but developers will need to rebundle with JDK 7 anyway. It won't be an issue unless we need to support universal binaries for non-Oracle-provided JDK distributions.

-- Scott K.