I think we should define an interface in the Java policy, then write wrappers for the different compilers, and install the wrappers as the alternative (this is already done for jikes-* at least and for the gij JVM). So we can indeed handle -cp in the wrappers.What interface do you suggest? The discussion her pretty much showed, that you can't rely on anything. This would mean: * -classpath is probably save (-cp already not...)
A precise interface should be discussed together. Off my head:
-classpath, -cp, -sourcepath, -O, -d, -g, -deprecation
If a feature is not implemented at all by a compiler, the wrapper should print a warning, and proceed (in particular, -g, -O and -deprecation are pretty harmless to ignore). We would also submit a feature request upstream for that feature.
I agree that we cannot just say " if they are command-line compatible with Sun's JDK javac", as this is a moving target. The list of options must be in the Java policy.
rt.jar could be defined by default, but overridable with -bootclasspath (handled in the wrapper if necessary). This matches Sun's javac behaviour, so it should make more existing scripts work out of the box on Debian.* setting up rt.jar? in javac or in the calling script? The script doesn't know the location, so we would be better off with /usr/lib/java-dev-env, which would be relative easy to maintain.
Thanks for this reply!
Thanks for your efforts to improve Java on Debian!
Daniel
