Some of the System Properties of Java

If we want to programmatically determine what version of the Java Runtime Environment

(JRE) is being used to execute a given application then, we can get the version via the following code illustrates:

Some of the java System Properties based on JDK 1.5 are given as follows:


Key Description of Associated Value

java.version Java Runtime Environment version
java.vendor Java Runtime Environment vendor
java.vendor.url Java vendor URL
java.home Java installation directory
java.vm.specification.version Java Virtual Machine specification version
java.vm.specification.vendor Java Virtual Machine specification vendor
java.vm.specification.name Java Virtual Machine specification name
java.vm.version Java Virtual Machine implementation version
java.vm.vendor Java Virtual Machine implementation vendor
java.vm.name Java Virtual Machine implementation name
java.specification.version Java Runtime Environment specification version
java.specification.vendor Java Runtime Environment specification vendor
java.specification.name Java Runtime Environment specification name
java.class.version Java class format version number
java.class.path Java class path
java.library.path List of paths to search when loading libraries
java.io.tmpdir Default temporary file path
java.compiler Name of JIT compiler to use
java.ext.dirs Path of extension directory or directories
os.name Operating system name
os.arch Operating system architecture
os.version Operating system version
file.separator File separator (/ on Unix)
path.separator Path separator (: on Unix)
line.separator Line separator (\n on Unix)
user.name User’s account name
user.home User’s home directory
user.dir User’s current working directory

The following table describes some of the most important system properties BASED on JDK 1.6


Key Description of Associated Value

"file.separator" Character that separates components of a file path. This is
/” on UNIX and “\” on
Windows.
"java.class.path" Path used to find directories and JAR archives containing class files.
Elements of the class path are separated by a platform-specific character specified in the path.separator property.
"java.home" Installation directory for Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
"java.vendor" JRE vendor name
"java.vendor.url" JRE vender URL
"java.version" JRE version number
"line.separator" Sequence used by operating system to separate lines in
text files
"os.arch" Operating system architecture
"os.name" Operating system name
"os.version" Operating system version
"path.separator" Path separator character used in java.class.path
"user.dir" User working directory
"user.home" User home directory
"user.name" User account name

3 thoughts on “Some of the System Properties of Java”

  1. CeciNEstPasUnProgrammeur

    You forgot to mention that you can set system properties at JVM invocation.

    You also didn’t mention that your example has problems of its own – determining the JVM version is trivial. Acting on it can be difficult. The only way to make sure that your program runs on a certain (older) version of Java is to compile and test it with that JVM. But then, the part for the newer-version JVM might not compile anymore. And if you compile it all with the newer version, the “old way” might accidentally call methods/classes that aren’t there.

    A *useful* example – something many don’t do but should – would be grabbing the line.separator property instead of adding “\n” to try to force a line break, because the different platforms have different line separators (\n for Linux, \r\n for Windows and \r for Macs IIRC).

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