This test checks the version of the Java virtual machine for an applet invoked by the <APPLET> tag. Generally this tag invokes the browser's internal Java virtual machine. This is the base applet for all further tests. At startup information about the Java virtual machine of the browser you are using to view this page is listed. Press the "Start Test" button to start the test. Running the test may take some time.
The used applet is JDK 1.0.2 compliant and should run on any
browser which is Java enabled. On startup it lists the virtual machine
properties got by System.getProperty(key). This yields some
information about the virtual machine. Note that these values are
reported by the VM itself and may be wrong. To get a more accurate
version information one has to check for classes new to certain versions.
This is done by creating various classes with
Class.forName("NewClassName"). It is also
possible to test for features of specific versions by calling various
methods which return different results due to maintenance releases or
bug fixes.
The following versions are identified by the applet: 1.0.0, 1.0.2, 1.1 beta, 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.4, 1.1.6, 1.2.0, 1.3.0 and 1.4.0. Major version numbers, i.e. 1.1, 1.2, etc., are easy to test because of the new classes, whereas minor version differences, i.e. 1.1.1, 1.1.4, etc., depend only on some minor fixed bugs, which are hard to reproduce. So for example the applet can not tell the difference between the virtual machine versions 1.1.6 and 1.1.8.
After pressing the "Start Test" button, the real test starts.
During this test the applet checks for all classes which should
be available in the reported version, i.e. all java.* and
javax.* classes. If a class is missing, its name is reported.
For example Internet Explorer 5.0 does not provide any RMI classes,
documented by the
"not supported (1.1): java.rmi.*" statement.