I agree that people may be using it. I haven't seen it used in a while,
but that doesn't mean anything. If we don't plan on removing the
feature, why should we deprecate it?
The name is because we wanted no difference between Java and C++
descriptors. System properties are the way to do env vars in Java.
System env vars are deprecated in Java. So I'd vote to leave things as
they are. If the CDE doesn't support this (documented and I assume,
working) feature, maybe we should add that support?
--Thilo
Adam Lally wrote:
On 3/19/07, Marshall Schor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
UIMA descriptors have an XML construct that can be used in UIMA
descriptors to reference the value of environmental variables, called
<envVarRef>.
But this is misnamed, and misleading to users. It actually substitutes
the value of the Java System property (if one exists). The
documentation says:
In several places throughout the descriptor, it is possible to
reference environment
variables. In Java, these are actually references to Java system
properties. To reference
system environment variables from a Java analysis engine you must
pass the environment
variables into the Java virtual machine by using the -D option on
the java command line.
This seems like a poor design. The Component Descriptor Editor (CDE)
doesn't support using this.
Here are some alternatives to discuss:
1) removing this capability.
2) changing the implementation of this to get environmental variables,
not Java System property values
How does this work in the C++ version (it obviously can't get Java
System properties, it seems)?
In C++ it really does get environment variables.
I'm in favor of deprecating this feature. I would be nervous about
completely removing it since people could be using it.
-Adam
