com.sun.tools.attach

About

What

Maven repackaging of OpenJDK's com.sun.tools.attach and com.sun.tools.attach.spi packages.

Why

When you include the JDK's tools.jar in your Maven POM:

	<dependency>
		<groupId>com.sun</groupId>
		<artifactId>tools</artifactId>
		<version>${version.java}</version>
		<scope>system</scope>
		<systemPath>${java.home}/../lib/tools.jar</systemPath>
	</dependency>

SonarQube 6.4 will display (Squid S3422):

Instead you may replace with:

	<dependency>
		<groupId>io.earcam.wrapped</groupId>
		<artifactId>com.sun.tools.attach</artifactId>
		<version>1.8.0_jdk8u172-b11</version>
		<scope>test</scope>
	</dependency>

If you need to depend on the API itself then use <scope>provided</scope> and <optional>true</optional>, it will still run happily in surefire tests but shouldn't be pulled to any distribution assembly.

Java 9 and above

Though built against Java 8, the library (latest version) works on 9 and 10.

Note: For Java 9 and above, you will need to use the JVM argument -Djdk.attach.allowAttachSelf=true in order to dynamically attach to the current VM (see JDK-8180425).

Miscellaneous

Maven is correct to require a dependency as com.sun.tools.attach is not part of the JRE. SonarQube is also correct to freakout at the sight of systemPath.

Since Java 8 (in preparation for modularity in Java 9), there has existed an annotation @jdk.Exported used to mark the intentionally public part's of the JDK (published API).

Interestingly forbidden-apis uses Security.getProperty("package.access") for it's jdk-internal check.

The modularity that comes with Java 9, means that the attach API will be available in jdk.attach.jmod - therefore it is unlikely this library will be maintained (at least in current form).

Need something else from tools.jar? There's another project jdk.compiler with the necessary bits for Javac AST, JavaDoc, etc.

Versions

Available versions listed on Maven Central.

Status

JVMs

Supported

Unsupported

The IBM JDK does not use the OpenJDK core for com.sun.tools.attach and the necessary implementation classes are not open source.

I did view the required class files (javap, I swear I didn't decompile them 😉) and also check the licence terms for rev-eng and redistribution, while IANAL, it clearly would breach the IBM licence (for Non-Warranted Programs (Z125-5589-05)).

Licences