Name: gm110360			Date: 08/06/2004


A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
The option flags for the tools in the SDK are inconsistent for no obvious reason. For example:

Not all tools provide a version flag.
Those tools which provide a classpath flag sometimes provide a short form (-cp) and sometimes do not.

For example, although javac has acquired a version flag, rmic and javap have not. Similarly they do not support the short form of the classpath option.

The -version flag is particularly attractive for problem reporting purposes, where otherwise one has to "trust" that the user has correctly determined which version of the tool is currently in their classpath. It is not unusual for more than one tool to be installed. Note that the report of "java -version" cannot guarantee the same version of rmic (for example) would have similar precedence in the system PATH.

(Tested against J2SE 5.0 snapshot Beta 3, build 60).

JUSTIFICATION :
Enhances the problem determination path, and is a small change with no side effects. There is no clash with existing parameters. With a release of Java 5 imminent this would be a great time to resolve this minor issue.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
C:\>rmic -version
rmic 1.5.0-beta3
etc.

C:\>rmic -cp . Foo

C:\>javap -version
rmic 1.5.0-beta3
etc.

C:\>javap -cp .

And so forth for all the command line tools.
ACTUAL -
C:\>rmic -version
-version is an invalid option or argument.
(etc.)
(Incident Review ID: 296074) 
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