I think this boils down to:
1. java apps are platform independent
2. invoking java apps is platform dependent
Just look at the installation of the JDK itself from,
say, IBM on AIX, Sun on Solaris, or HP on HPUX, and
you'll find that when you type "java -jar ant.jar"
you are invoking a shell script of some kind.
So, while it may be 'ugly' in some fashion, I
don't know of a way around it. I've looked
at commercial apps and they all address this
issue one way or another. Sometimes they
wrap their java apps in bat/shell scripts.
Sometimes they wrap them in python scripts
or perl scripts. At some point the OS
independent app has to be invoked in an OS
dependent way...
Example: on solaris 2.6 "java" is actually
this shell script, which has to deal with
issues like native threads vs green threads,
etc...
#!/bin/ksh -p
#
# @(#)java_wrapper.sh 1.52 99/01/13
#
# Copyright 1994-1998 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.,
# 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, California, 94303, U.S.A.
# All rights reserved.
#
#===================================================================
# THIS SCRIPT AND JAVA WILL NOT RUN UNDER SUNOS4.X, AKA SOLARIS 1.X.
#===================================================================
PRG=`whence $0` >/dev/null 2>&1
progname=`/usr/bin/basename $0`
proc=`/usr/bin/uname -p`
APPHOME=`/usr/bin/dirname "$PRG"`/..
# Resolve symlinks. See 4152645.
while [ -h "$PRG" ]; do
ls=`/usr/bin/ls -ld "$PRG"`
link=`/usr/bin/expr "$ls" : '^.*-> \(.*\)$'`
if /usr/bin/expr "$link" : '^/' > /dev/null; then
prg="$link"
else
prg="`/usr/bin/dirname $PRG`/$link"
fi
PRG=`whence "$prg"` > /dev/null 2>&1
APPHOME=`/usr/bin/dirname "$PRG"`/..
done
JREHOME=$APPHOME/jre
# Where is JRE?
unset jre
if [ -f "${JREHOME}/lib/${proc}/libjava.so" ]; then
jre="${JREHOME}"
fi
if [ -f "${APPHOME}/lib/${proc}/libjava.so" ]; then
jre="${APPHOME}"
fi
if [ "x${jre}" = "x" ]; then
echo "Error: can't find libjava.so."
exit 1
fi
# Select vm type (if classic vm, also select thread type).
unset vmtype
unset ttype
DEFAULT_THREADS_FLAG=green
if [ "x$1" = "x-hotspot" ]; then
vmtype=hotspot
ttype=native_threads
shift 1
else
if [ "x$1" = "x-classic" ]; then
vmtype=classic
ttype=${DEFAULT_THREADS_FLAG}_threads
shift 1
else
if [ "x$1" = "x-green" ]; then
vmtype=classic
ttype=green_threads
shift 1
else
if [ "x$1" = "x-native" ]; then
vmtype=classic
ttype=native_threads
shift 1
else
if [ -d ${jre}/lib/${proc}/hotspot ]; then
vmtype=hotspot
ttype=native_threads
else
vmtype=classic
if [[ ${THREADS_FLAG:-${DEFAULT_THREADS_FLAG}} =
native ]]
then
ttype=native_threads
else
ttype=green_threads
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
# Special handling for classic VM.
if [ "${vmtype}" = "classic" ]; then
# fix for bug 4032715
if [[ ${ttype} = green_threads ]] ; then
LD_BIND_NOW=yes
export LD_BIND_NOW
fi
# For internal use by classic VM.
_JVM_THREADS_TYPE="${ttype}"
export _JVM_THREADS_TYPE
fi
# Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH for hotspot VM.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${jre}/lib/${proc}/${ttype}:${jre}/lib/${proc}/${vmtype}:${jre}/lib/${proc}:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# prepend XFILESEARCHPATH with awt Motif default locale resource files.
XFILESEARCHPATH="${jre}/lib/locale/%L/%T/%N%S:$XFILESEARCHPATH"
export XFILESEARCHPATH
prog="$APPHOME/bin/${proc}/${ttype}/${progname}"
# Run.
if [ -x "$prog" ]
then
exec $DEBUG_PROG "$prog" "$@"
else
echo >&2 "$progname was not found in ${prog}"
exit 1
fi
