Hi,
On 12/17/2015 12:03 PM, Stephen Colebourne wrote:
And here are the threads for Joda projects, which also need optional
dependencies:
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jigsaw-dev/2015-December/005462.html
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jigsaw-dev/2015-December/005638.html
Note, I do not consider command line flags to be acceptable as a solution.
Stephen
On 17 December 2015 at 09:41, Stephane Epardaud <s...@epardaud.fr> wrote:
As I already mentioned, we also have the need for this in Ceylon, for
the same reasons. Dependencies are required at compile-time but optional
at run-time, based on detection: if it's there fine, if not then no problem.
The only problem I see with optional dependencies at runtime is as
follows...
If "requires optional X" semantic was to include the module X in
configuration if it could be found with module finder (on -modulepath),
otherwise not, then the established configuration would not only be
dependent on command-line arguments, but also on the content of module
directories. If there was a common directory used as a repository for
various modules, you would not be able to opt-out of using a particular
module if it was declared as optional dependency and included in the
modulepath.
So instead of assembling command-line arguments (-addmods ...), you
would be forced to assemble private module directories for each
particular configuration.
Contrasting this with what we have now, the classpath: you have to
declare that you use a particular optional dependency on command line,
by mentioning it on the -classpath. And when you do that (assemble a
-classpath command line argument), the configuration does not even check
that it really is there. If the .jar file isn't there, it is simply ignored.
So I think the safe "requires optional X" semantic would have to be such
that it acts as two descriptors:
requires X - at compile time
nothing - at runtime (no attempt to find the module and add it to
configuration)
You would still have to put -addmods X to command line, but then you
would have a total control over configuration from command-line only.
Optional dependencies basically then just reduce to a means to have two
different descriptors: one for compile-time and one for run-time, where
run-time has a sub-set of requires from compile-time descriptor. It can
be done now (with separate compilation), but it would be convenient to
have a single descriptor with two scopes of requires.
Regards, Peter
