This document describes some of the changes made to the tools in version
1.4 of the Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition. For links to reference pages
for all the tools and utilities, see SDK Tools.
Tools changes in Java 2 SDK 1.4.1
Three new security
tools were added in the 1.4.1 release of
the Java 2 platform: kinit, klist,
and ktab. These tools help users obtain,
list and manage Kerberos tickets.
For changes to the javac bytecode compiler in
J2SE 1.4.1, see the online release notes.
These changes have been brought forward to subsequent
releases in the Java 2 SDK 1.4 family.
The java application launcher supports
command-line options for the new Assertions Facility.
New option -Xconcgc is available for invoking
concurrent garbage collection on multi-processor platforms
to reduce garbage-collections pauses on large heaps.
On the SolarisTM Operating Environment
(SPARCTM Platform Edition) new
command-line options are available for specifying 64-bit or
32-bit operation. On all platforms, new option -Xloggc:file
logs each garbage-collection event in the specified file.
The javac byte-code compiler has a new
-source option that enables support for compiling
source code containing assertions. Also, default compilation is
for -target 1.2. Previously, the default was 1.1. The
compiler now correctly detects unreachable empty statements, as
discussed in bug 4083890. Javac also recognizes the new
-Xswitchcheck option that checks switch blocks for
fall-through cases and provides a warning message for any that are
found.
The javadoc tool has several new tags, a dozen new
options, smarter inheriting of doc comments, more control over
HTML output, improvements to the Doclet API, better error
messages, dozens of bug fixes, and is easier to run.
For more details, see What's
New in Javadoc 1.4.0.
Downloaded separately from the SDK, the
MIF doclet
has had a major upgrade -- it generates API documentation
in FrameMaker and PDF format.
The native2ascii tool contains bug fixes to now correctly
process source files encoded with Unicode encoding, such as the default
encoding on WinNT. More specifically, the conversion code correctly
processes line endings in encodings where a line-end is encoded as
2-bytes (Unicode being the most notable example).
(Fixes bugs 4191313 and 4218514)
The graphical Policy Tool utility has been enhanced
to enable specifying a Principal field indicating what user is to be
granted specified access control permissions.
The idlj tool has changed the default generated files and provides
new command-line options. By default, the idlj tool generates server-side
bindings following the Portable Servant Inheritance Model. New command-line
options enable you to continue to generate backwards-compatible server-side bindings.
These changes were made to more closely align with the Object Management Group (OMG)
CORBA specifications.
The orbd tool, which stands for Object Request Broker Daemon,
is new to this release. ORBD is used instead of the Transient
Naming Service, tnameserv. ORBD includes both a Transient Naming Service
and a Persistent Naming Service. The orbd tool is used to enable
clients to transparently locate and invoke persistent objects on servers in the
CORBA environment. The orbd tool incorporates the functionality of a Server Manager,
an Interoperable Naming Service, and a Bootstrap Name Server. When used in conjunction
with the servertool, the Server Manager locates, registers, and activates
a server when a client wants to access the server.
The servertool is new to this release. The servertool provides
an ease-of-use interface for application programmers to register, unregister,
startup, and shutdown a server.
The rmic compiler has a new option to enable Portable Object Adapter, or POA support for Remote Method Invocation. The POA enables portability among vendor ORBs, among other uses. To learn more about the POA, follow the link. To enable POA support with the rmic compiler, use the arguments rmic -iiop -poa.
There are minor bug fixes but no feature changes to other basic tools:
appletviewer, jar, jdb, javah, javap,
extcheck, and unregbean.