#237 Ticket 232 (JAVA_TOOLS_OPTIONS bug) was not properly fixed nor was it closed

[Jeffrey Holt]

Ticket 232 describes a problem with interpreting the environment variable JAVA_TOOLS_OPTIONS. It describes how version 3.5 abnormally terminates if the variable's value is bounded by the apostrophe character. In 3.50, presently the latest version, using the apostrophe character works as a bounding character.

However, the obvious bounding character, the quote, is a problem. Perhaps, it was a problem in 3.5 but nobody properly tested that version.

At any rate, the launcher terminates without any fanfare. I can't tell from the lauch4j.log file if it launched the jvm and the jvm died or if it died after writing a seemingly normal log file.

But I do know that if I set JAVA_TOOLS_OPTIONS and run a hello world from a java 21 command line that the JVM has no problem printing the "Picked up ..." message whether. So the problem has to be somewhere in the launcher.

[Jeffrey Holt]

After my tests with jdk 23, I think there is a java for windows bug that manifests only when JNI_CreateJavaVM starts the JVM. I don't see a problem when the java command starts the JVM. I think the java command main is handling the bounding characters correctly.

I think a reasonable workaround for the bug is to strip bounding characters (if they're used) before calling JNI_CreateJavaVM in jnihead.c.

I also looked in the "git log -p" output that extends all the way back to 2006. I see no reference at all in the commits to JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS being interrogated at all, which adds more credit to my theory that it's a java bug, not a launcher bug.