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What's new in version 0.42.0

The following new features and notable changes since version 0.41.0 are included in this release:

Features and changes

Binaries and supported environments

Eclipse OpenJ9™ release 0.42.0 supports OpenJDK 21.

OpenJDK 21 with Eclipse OpenJ9 is a long term support (LTS) release and supersedes OpenJDK 20 with Eclipse OpenJ9.

To learn more about support for OpenJ9 releases, including OpenJDK levels and platform support, see Supported environments.

Start of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS) and later OpenJ9 jextract removed

The dump extractor tool, OpenJ9 jextract, that was deprecated since the 0.26.0 release is now removed from Java 21 and later. The jpackcore tool replaced the OpenJ9 jextract tool after its deprecation. End of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS) and later

Change in the System.gc() call behavior

The System.gc call triggers a global garbage collection (GC) cycle, which is a stop-the-world GC. If the System.gc() call was made during an active GC cycle where the concurrent operation was in progress, the status of objects might not be updated. An object that was reachable when the concurrent operation started might be considered as reachable even if the object is no longer in use later. The System.gc() call had to be called twice explicitly to ensure that all unreachable objects are identified and cleared.

Now, the System.gc() call triggers the GC cycle twice internally to clear the unreachable objects that were not identified during the first GC cycle. The call also triggers finalization of the objects in the Finalization queues.

For more information, see Garbage collection.

New -XX:[+|-]IProfileDuringStartupPhase option added

The VM uses heuristics to decide whether to collect interpreter profiling information during the VM startup. You can overrule the heuristics and control the collection of the profiling information during the startup phase by using the -XX:[+|-]IProfileDuringStartupPhase option.

Start of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS) New -XX:[+|-]CRIUSecProvider option added

When you enable CRIU support, all the existing security providers are removed from the security provider list during the checkpoint phase and CRIUSECProvider is added by default.

You can now control the use of CRIUSECProvider during the checkpoint phase with the -XX:[+|-]CRIUSecProvider option. You can use all the existing security providers instead of the CRIUSECProvider by specifying the -XX:-CRIUSecProvider option.

For more information, see -XX:[+|-]CRIUSecProvider. End of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS)

Start of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS) and later New JDK 21 features

The following features are supported by OpenJ9:

  • JEP 440: Record Patterns
  • JEP 442: Foreign Function & Memory API (Third Preview)
  • JEP 444: Virtual Threads
  • JEP 446: Scoped Values (Preview)
  • JEP 448: Vector API (Sixth Incubator)
  • JEP 451: Prepare to Disallow the Dynamic Loading of Agents
  • JEP 453: Structured Concurrency (Preview)

The following features are implemented in OpenJDK and available in any build of OpenJDK 21 with OpenJ9:

  • JEP 430: String Templates (Preview)
  • JEP 431: Sequenced Collections
  • JEP 441: Pattern Matching for switch
  • JEP 443: Unnamed Patterns and Variables (Preview)
  • JEP 445: Unnamed Classes and Instance Main Methods (Preview)
  • JEP 452: Key Encapsulation Mechanism API

You can find the full list of features for JDK 21 at the OpenJDK project. Any remaining features that are listed either do not apply to OpenJ9 or are not implemented and hence not applicable to OpenJ9 in this release. End of content that applies to Java 21 (LTS) and later

Known problems and full release information

To see known problems and a complete list of changes between Eclipse OpenJ9 v0.41.0 and v0.42.0 releases, see the Release notes.