Enhancements in Packages java.lang.* and java.util.*

The following topics are covered:

Enhancements in Java SE 8

Parallel Array Sorting

The Parallel Array Sorting feature adds the same set of sorting operations currently provided by the Arrays class, but with a parallel implementation that utilizes the Fork/Join framework. Additional utility methods were added to java.util.Arrays that use the JSR 166 Fork/Join parallelism common pool to provide sorting of arrays in parallel. The methods are called parallelSort() and are overloaded for all the primitive data types and Comparable objects. See JEP 103 for more details.

The new methods are mentioned in the Java Tutorials (see Arrays and Fork/Join).

Standard Encoding and Decoding Base64

Applications that use base64 encoding schemes include Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and encode passwords for HTTP headers. These applications encode and decode textual data. A new API for base64 encoding and decoding has been introduced in the java.util package. The Base64 class defines factory methods to get Encoder and Decoder instances that encode and decode base64 data. Base64Sample and Base64Sample2 are code samples that demonstrate the Base64 class. See JEP 135: Base64 Encoding and Decoding for more details.

Unsigned Arithmetic Support

Methods were added to the Java Libraries to support unsigned integer arithmetic. Integers are 32-bits numbers out of which 1 bit is reserved for the sign but using these unsigned methods one can use all the 32 bits. Static methods such as parseUnsignedLong, toUnsignedString, divideUnsigned, compareUnsigned were added to the Long class and methods such as divideUnsigned, compareUnsigned, parseUnsignedInt, remainderUnsigned, toUnsignedString were added to the Integer class. These methods are faster than using the BigDecimal and BigInteger for arithmetic opearations as these include optimizations of primitive datatypes.

Other issues in Java SE 8

Area: Core Libraries / java.lang.reflect
Synopsis: The java.lang.reflect.Proxy(InvocationHandler h) constructor now throws a NullPointerException if the given InvocationHandler parameter is null.
Nature of Incompatibility: behavioral
Description: Existing code that constructs a dynamic proxy instance with a null argument will now get NullPointerException. Such usage is expected to rarely exist since a null proxy instance has no use and will throw a NullPointerException when its method is invoked anyway.
RFE: 4487672.

Enhancements in Java SE 7

In addition, the following enhancements are introduced:

Area: API: Language
Standard/Platform: Java SE 7
Synopsis: Class loading can be prone to deadlocks if custom class loaders do not adhere to an acyclic class loader delegation model. New APIs have been added to the java.lang.ClassLoader class to support parallel loading of classes and finer-grained locking mechanism for class loading operations. Custom class loaders which would like to leverage this functionality must refer to the Class Loader API Modifications for Deadlock Fix documentation for the suggested model and requirements and be implemented accordingly.

Area: API: Language
Standard/Platform: JDK 7
Synopsis: Previously, the two exception types in the javax.lang.model.type package, MirroredTypeException and MirroredTypesException, were unrelated. In the javac implementation, MirroredTypeException was thrown where MirroredTypesException should have been thrown. In part to address this problem, MirroredTypeException was made a subclass of MirroredTypesException. This change is binary compatible and generally preserves the behavior of existing annotation processors. However, it is possible this change may cause source incompatibilities for client programs; in those cases, changing the order of catch clauses should allow the programs to compile again.

Area: API: Language
Standard/Platform: JDK 7
Synopsis: To model the language changes in this release, several updates were made to javax.lang.model.* including adding a method to the javax.lang.model.type.TypeVisitor interface. Such an addition is source incompatible with libraries that have directly implemented the TypeVisitor interface. However, such additions were foreseen as part of this API's evolution and libraries were explicitly cautioned to extend one of the utility visitors instead of directly implementing such an interface.
RFE: 6933147

Area: API: Language
Standard/Platform: JDK 7
Synopsis: The method Runtime.exec(String command, String[] envp, File dir) breaks the command string into tokens, consisting of the name of the executable and its arguments, by the invocation new StringTokenizer(command) with the default delimiter set (the space character, the tab character, the newline character, the carriage-return character, and the form-feed character). Essentially, this method splits the command string into tokens, using white space as the delimiter.

On Windows operating systems, splitting the command parameter by white spaces can lead to errors. In particular, if the command parameter contains an executable path with spaces, the invocation new StringTokenizer(command) extracts the wrong executable name. For example, the invocation Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\\My Programs\\foo.exe bar") attempts to launch the program C:\My with the arguments Programs\foo.exe and bar. This invocation is likely to fail with an exception to indicate that the executable C:\My cannot be found.

If your legacy application is not using a security manager (see the class SecurityManager), you can specify the system property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands with any value other than false so that the method Runtime.exec correctly parses path names with spaces. (See System Properties in The Java Tutorials.) Alternatively, you can surround the path name with quotation marks. For example, the invocation Runtime.getRuntime().exec("\"C:\\My Programs\\foo.exe\" bar") attempts to launch C:\My Programs\foo.exe with the argument bar.

Note: For updates after Update 25, the name of the system property to allow ambiguous commands is jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbiguousCommands.

Area: API: Utilities
Standard/Platform: JDK 7
Synopsis: Due to an error in java.util.TreeMap, it was previously possible to insert invalid null elements and elements not implementing Comparable into empty TreeMaps and TreeSets. Only a single invalid element could be inserted into the empty TreeMaps or TreeSets; additional elements would cause the expected NullPointerException or ClassCastException. Most other operations upon the collection would also fail. As of JDK 7, inserting an invalid null element or an element not implementing Comparable into an empty TreeMap or TreeSet throws a NullPointerException. RFE: 5045147

Enhancements in Java SE 6

java.util

Enhancements in Java SE 5.0

java.lang

java.lang.instrument

java.util

Enhancements in Java SE 1.4

java.lang

java.util.logging

java.util.prefs

Enhancements in Java SE 1.3

java.lang

java.util

java.util.jar
java.util.zip


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