[news.eclipse.tools] Re: XBootClasspath

["Scott Stanchfield" <scott@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<soapbox>
IMHO, this is a very bad idea. I suspect there will be many other plugins
that need xerces/xalan support and they would all be seeing the different
versions you set up. If the xerces/xalan impls were very backward
compatible, that would be ok, but it feels dangerous to me.
</soapbox>

That said, There is an "endorsed standards override" mechanism in JDK 1.4
and later -- I believe if you place the jars in $JAVA_HOME/lib/endorsed,
they are effectively placed in the bootclasspath ahead of the rt.jar.

[BTW: You can also use

  -Xbootclasspath/p:jar1;jar2

and the jars will be pre-pended in front of the rt.jar, so you won't have to
mention the rt.jar...]

If you do set up your plugin to modify the bootclasspath or put things in
the endorsed overrides area, make sure you warn users about this...

<soapbox>
This type of issue is why I feel Sun should STOP bringing everything into
the Java core. It makes it impossible to change versions of things without
affecting *everything* running in the JVM. Features like the XML parsers
should be optional jars, which would allow apps (and plugins) to specify
their own jars to use via classloaders.

Grr. Arg.
</soapbox>

-- Scott

==============================================================
Scott Stanchfield    scott@xxxxxxxxxxxx    http://javadude.com

Lead author of "Effective VisualAge for Java, Version 3"
                                      http://javadude.com/evaj

VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks     http://javadude.com/vaj
Visit for Java Enlightenment!             http://www.jguru.com
==============================================================

"Colin Savage" <sav912@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:atvamk$tl8$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> The plugin I am developing depends on some features from Xalan 2.4.1, but
> with java 1.4.x there is an older version of xalan included already.
>
> I can launch the runtime workbench using the following VM args to override
> it and all is well.
>
> -Xbootclasspath:C:\javalibs\xml-apis.jar;C:\javalibs\xercesImpl.jar;C:\jav
alibs\xalan.jar;C:\j2sdk1.4.1_01\jre\lib\rt.jar
>
> Is there a way to make this happen "automagically" when the plugin is
> installed, or is there a command-line for starting eclipse that can be
> used?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thanks
> Colin
>