Re: Configuration class and --enable-native-sync

[Steven Augart]

C. Brian Jones wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 17:56, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> > Agreed.. in general more info is better. E.g., why not also throw in
> > the output of "uname -a", the classpath version, etc.

The classpath version is already present in the Configuration class, 
but I don't quite see what you'd like to do with the output of "uname 
-a".  I agree it might be nice to be able to get at that information 
programmatically, but I would think that it would be more useful to 
get the information about the computer you're running on, instead of 
about the computer that Classpath was built on.

> I'm not sure if the intention is to be able to tell prior to runtime
> what the options were or if it is only necessary during runtime.  So it
> would be easy enough to add something to the Configuration class, but I
> thought folks wanted to not abuse it too much.  Another option perhaps
> even in addition to is to simply add these to standard classpath
> specific system properties at startup for use via System.getProperty()?

In my case, I want to be able to check at the time I build Jikes RVM. 
 If the user has build GNU Classpath in a configuration that doesn't 
work well with Jikes RVM (e.g., with CNI instead of JNI), I want to 
warn her or him so that she or he can build it appropriately.  I was 
prepared to do this by having the host VM run a little Java program 
that reads the gnu.classpath.Configuration class, and then makes the 
decision.

(Yeah, a host VM that uses Classpath will normally get 
gnu.classpath.Configuration from its own bootstrap class loader; you 
have to do some tricks with class loaders so that the VM's bootstrap 
class loader reads one version and then a non-delegating class loader 
reads in another gnu.classpath.Configuration from the version of 
Classpath that is being used for the build.)

I don't think Jikes RVM will have a great use for getting at it via 
System.getProperty() -- I suppose it might be nice for the VM to be do 
some extra sanity checking on what version of Classpath it's been 
slipped -- but I won't object to the data being available there if 
some other VM has a use for it.

--
Steven Augart

Jikes RVM, a free, open source, Virtual Machine:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/jikesrvm