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Re: java-compiler useless?



Mark Howard <mh@tildemh.com> writes:

> Notes:
> - should we use Sun style -classpath or GNU standard (and so gcj style)
> --classpath ?

-classpath should definitely by supported. Most package's upstream
build systems will follow Sun. Patching each occurance is silly.

Of course, each javac may support other dash or double-dash options as
it sees fit.

> - If packages build-depend on java-compiler, --version will be useful to
> see which one is being used. Alternatively, perhaps it would be a good
> idea to say that this information should be printed whenever javac is
> run - this would be especially useful for users who aren't familiar with
> the alternatives system.

Allowing a Unixy "silence is success" behaviour is better, so
--version it is.

> - Not sure if wrapper naming is needed, but it might make it clearer to
> have such a convention (it would differentiate between upstream compiler
> and the wrapper)

I'd leave the naming and other specifics up to the package. For
example some compiler may support all our requirements already,
calling the real binary *wrapper does not seem right.

> - Sun's javac creates directories below the -d directory following the
> class name e.g. -d work   com.debian.test -> work/com/debian/test.class.
> This would be slightly more difficult to implement in a wrapper script,
> so I think it is best to say this shouldn't happen.

Isn't this actually standard across compilers? jikes does it, gcj, too.

> - should @files also be included? (allows the user to give the name of a
> file containing source file names rather than listing the source files
> directly)

Leave it out for now. It's not really needed on Unix, but if many
portable (heh) Java packages want it, we can add it later.

I think both javac and java interface should respect $CLASSPATH. This
is actually the only way to set the classpath that is respected by all
VMs I know.

-- 
Robbe

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