On Tue, 8 Oct 2024 15:28:17 GMT, Jan Lahoda <jlah...@openjdk.org> wrote:
> Currently, running `java` without any parameters will lead to an output that > is a full `--help`, which is over 100 lines (on my computer at least), and it > feels overwhelming. And many people might actually want to run JShell/REPL, > not the `java` launcher, but it is difficult find out about JShell. > > The proposal herein is to print a much shorter help, together with a pointer > to JShell, when the launcher does not know what to do. I.e. there is nothing > specified to start, and no option like `--help` is specified. In particular, > on my machine, it prints: > > $ java > openjdk 24-internal 2025-03-18 > > Usage: java [options...] <what to execute> [arguments to main method...] > > Where <what to execute> is one of: > <MainClass> to execute the main method of a compiled class > -jar <jar-file.jar> to execute the main class in a JAR archive > -m <module>[/<MainClass>] to execute the main class of a module > <SourceFile.java> to compile and execute a single-file program > > Where key options include: > --class-path <class path> > a : separated list of directories and JAR archives to search for class > files > --module-path <module path> > a : separated list of directories and JAR archives to search for modules > > For more details about this launcher: java --help > For an interactive Java environment: jshell > > > Hopefully, this may be easier both for people trying to run something, and > for people that are really looking for JShell. > > What do you think? > > Thanks! Hello Jan, > Any more descriptive/specific suggestions than target? I suspect you might already know this - internally, in the launcher implementation, this is called "launch mode" (represented as "Unknown", "Main class", "JAR file", "Module", "Source" modes). I however don't know if it will be appropriate to use `<launch mode>` here in the help text. ------------- PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/21411#issuecomment-2401612115
