Java Execution Environment Release Notes

Since this release is based on Sun's 1.1.6 JDK release, it in general contains the same known bugs. Likewise, all the bugs fixed by Sun's JDK releases through 1.1.6 have been fixed in this release with respect to our previous releases, version 3.0.1 (based on Sun's 1.1.3) and version 3.1 (based on Sun's 1.1.5). For details, see Sun's Java Bugs Web Site.

One exception is that this release includes a patch which fixes Sun bug 4134300, a bug in the string formatting of the java.text.DecimalFormat class. This fix is not in Sun's 1.1.6 release, but will be in their 1.1.7 release.

Bugs Fixed Between Version 3.0.1 and Version 3.1

• A bug was fixed which prevented multiple multicast sockets from concurrently subscribing to the same multicast group and port.
  
  
• A bug was fixed which caused java to encounter a segmentation fault when the TZ environment variable was set to a string longer than 8 characters.

Bugs Fixed Between Version 3.1 and Version 3.1.1

• Broadcast packets can now be sent on datagram sockets. Previously, an attempt to do so resulted in a java.io.IOException.
  
  
• When using the -D command line option to set properties, you can now successfully give quoted values which contain spaces, for example:

  java -DmyProperty="a b" myProgram
  

  In the 3.1 release, this resulted in the following error message:

  Can't find class b
  

Known Bugs in Version 3.1.1

• The -prof option to java does not work properly in the presence of MIPS code execution. If you use the -prof option, use the -nojit option also.
  
  
• At runtime, when items are added to a java.awt.List object, you may see warnings of the following form:

  Warning: 
      Name: HorScrollBar
      Class: XmScrollBar
      The scrollbar page increment is less than 1.
  

  They do not indicate any real problem. They are due to a bug in Motif which will eventually be fixed, but in the meantime there are two ways you can eliminate them if you like:

  • Add the line

    XApplication*sgiMode: true
    

    to the .Xdefaults or .Xresources file in your home directory (you will need to login or run xrdb for this to take effect). This will also change a few minor aspects of how your windows are displayed such that they look more like other SGI desktop applications.

    If you have access to the root account on your system and want to make this change effective for all users, add the above line to the file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XApplication (create the file if it does not already exist).

  • If you have control over the source code of the application, then before adding items to the list you can show it, by making sure that it has been added to another UI object (i.e., a subclass of java.awt.Container) and then calling show() on that UI object.
  
  
• If you display Java applications using AWT on a machine running IRIX 6.5, and you type a "<" into a java.awt.TextField, you will get a ">" instead. This is due to a X-Windows bug in IRIX 6.5; to fix it you must upgrade to IRIX 6.5.1.
  
  
• If you implement native methods in C++ and make use of C++ exceptions, under uncommon circumstances your program may abort with the following message:

  Assertion failed in file "../../c++runtime/throw.cxx", line 941
  Abort (core dumped)
  

  You can work around this bug by adding an empty throw specification ("throw()") to each C++ function which implements a Java native method (you do not need to do this for other C++ functions/methods). Also, when compiling your C++ code, you must define the symbol JAVA_NATIVE_METHOD_THROW_CLAUSE (e.g., on the command line with the -D flag), which causes the native method declarations generated by javah to also contain these empty throw specifications.

Other Issues

• Several users commented about larger font sizes in the 3.1 release. Starting with that release, selection of Java fonts became dependent on font.properties files in /usr/java/lib as well as on the X-Windows server.

  For any given point size, the font that is chosen on SGI systems matches what PostScript produces on a printer for a font of the same point size. The reason that Sun's fonts look smaller is that the Sun X server chooses 75dpi fonts even on 95dpi monitors, for example, whereas the SGI X server chooses 100dpi fonts instead. Likewise, the fonts in our 3.0.1 release were smaller because the AWT code that chose them was incorrectly based upon the same assumption.

  Unfortunately, some existing Java code depends on these smaller fonts for UI layout to be correct. If you would like font sizes comparable to those of the 3.0.1 release or those on Sun systems, you can set the JAVA_SMALL_FONTS environment variable:

  setenv JAVA_SMALL_FONTS
  

• If you want to use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge that is provided in the java_eoe product, you must obtain an ODBC driver. On Sun's web site, you can find information about JDBC drivers in general and about the JDBC-ODBC Bridge in particular. If you try to use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge and do not have an ODBC driver, you will get an error message similar to this:

  /usr/java/bin/../bin32/sgi/green_threads/java: rld: Fatal Error: cannot successfully map soname 'libodbcinst.so' under any of the filenames /usr/java/bin/../lib32/sgi/green_threads/libodbcinst.so:/usr/lib32/libodbcinst.so:/lib32/libodbcinst.so:/usr/libn32/libodbcinst.so:/libn32/libodbcinst.so:  (libJdbcOdbc.so)
  

• If you are also using a Netscape browser with Java support, you must be careful about setting the CLASSPATH and JAVA_HOME environment variables, since Netscape also uses these variables to locate Java library class files. For more general information on setting these variables, see our suggestions for setting up your environment to run Java correctly.
  
  
  • If you set one of these environment variables to include the location of the classes in this kit, you may see the following problems when running Netscape:
    • Unable to start a java applet: the version number for your classes is wrong.
    • A bus error or segmentation violation when using Netscape to view a page containing an applet.
    
    
  • If you set one of these environment variables to include the location of Netscape's classes (normally contained in a file with a name like java_3* or moz*.zip, depending on your version of Netscape), you may see a bus error, segmentation violation, or exception when using one of the tools in this kit.
  
  If you do in fact need to set one of these variables for using the JDK or for using Netscape, you should
  
  
  • Use the JDK and Netscape in different command shells, with your environment variables set appropriately in each shell.
    
    
  • Temporarily set your environment correctly for Netscape while you start it up, then set it correctly for the JDK.
    
    

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