Another problem with links would be that not all file systems support links.
Regards, Volker On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 10:34 PM, Brian Burkhalter <brian.burkhal...@oracle.com> wrote: > > On Mar 10, 2014, at 2:24 PM, Steven Schlansker wrote: > >>> D) Bidirectional: Java 9 and pre-9 preferences would be kept in sync. >> >> If the scope of the change remains to naming only (leaving the file format >> the same), > > It is almost naming only; see below. > >> it may be possible to >> implement option D via linking - either hard links or symlinks - preserving >> bidirectional compatibility >> without the need for an explicit sync operation. > > Interesting possibility but I don't know that it would work. Consider the > case where Java 9+ creates some preferences on a system where none existed > before. As it does not want to create anything using the old encoding, then > any subsequently run Java 8- instance will not detect the new preferences. > Also, since Java 8- would not understand the newer encoding, the entries > could not be stored in the same tree as this would cause an exception when a > Java 8- instance attempted to read them. > > If I missed something altogether, please elaborate. > > Thanks, > > Brian
