It appears that the order of the java arguments is critical here. This was surprising. Had me scratching my head for a while.

bonsai<465> /opt/java/jdk1.6.0/bin/java -Xint -client -version
java version "1.6.0-rc"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-rc-b98)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-rc-b98, interpreted mode, sharing) <--- OK

bonsai<466> /opt/java/jdk1.6.0/bin/java -client -version -Xint
java version "1.6.0-rc"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-rc-b98)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-rc-b98, mixed mode, sharing) <--- Strange, not interpreted? -Xint silently ignored?

It appears the the second one above has ignored the -Xint option. The Hotspot version string comes directly from the HotSpot VM as far as I can tell.

Ahh... I see the issue, the -version option appears to terminate some of the option parsing. Not -server and -client, but apparently options that change the VM like -Xint, etc.

bonsai<467> /opt/java/jdk1.6.0/bin/java -client -Xint -version
java version "1.6.0-rc"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-rc-b98)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-rc-b98, interpreted mode, sharing) <--- OK

Maybe this is just a documentation issue, e.g. "Displays version information and exit. Options after -version are ignored, except for -server and -client."?

Actually it appears that other options do this too, like -X and -help, many options supplied on the command like after -version, -help, or -X are completely ignored.

Interesting enough, not all the tools behave this way, so we have an inconsistent situation, check out javah:

bonsai<59> javah -version -junk
Error: -junk is an illegal argument

Usage: javah [options] <classes>

where [options] include:

        -help Print this help message and exit
        -classpath <path> Path from which to load classes
        -bootclasspath <path> Path from which to load bootstrap classes
        -d <dir> Output directory
        -o <file> Output file (only one of -d or -o may be used)
        -jni Generate JNI-style header file (default)
        -version Print version information
        -verbose Enable verbose output
        -force Always write output files

<classes> are specified with their fully qualified names (for
instance, java.lang.Object).

But 'java' is silent:

bonsai<60> java -version -junk
java version "1.5.0_06"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_06-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 1.5.0_06-b05, mixed mode)

Seems like we should be consistent at least, but this is a minor issue.

-kto