Question on enable system assertions

[Richard Vagner]

When do we need to have system assertions enabled? Can someone give me an example in which the system assertion is enabled?

[Mike Gershman]

If you have assertions in your source code, you must compile like this:
javac -source 1.4 MyClass.java
or your assert statements will cause compilation errors.

To enable these assertions, you must also execute like this:
java -ea MyClass
Otherwise, the compiled assertions will not do anything at execution time.

[Richard Vagner]

Thanks Mike,

Actually, I am asking about "system assertions", which can be enabled by
java -esa

I want to know why we need it and an example will be great.

[Mike Gershman]

From an SCJP perspective, you just need to know that -esa is entirely independent of -ea and -dsa is equally independent of -da and that these options control assertions in system classes. Full stop.

What are the "system classes" controlled by -esa? Classes not loaded by a classloader. I think that these are classes integral to the jvm itself.

Are there actually any assertions in these classes as part of j2sdk1.4? Not in any documentation or source libraries that I searched.

When would you use -esa? When software support asks you to, probably after adding some debugging code to trap a specific problem.

If you want more information contact Sun, if you have the contacts, or grab a developer at a Sun presentation.

[marc weber]

Note that in Java 1.5, no special flags are needed to compile with assertions.