ADDITIONAL SYSTEM INFORMATION :
Java 9 or higher, since revision c44bb2ab6ab7

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Using the command line flag -Djavax.accessibility.assistive_technologies with an empty list causes exception because it tries to load a class named empty string.

Revision http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk9/client/jdk/rev/c44bb2ab6ab7 changes the parsing of this argument so that no list provided is interpreted as one single class named "" (empty string) rather than an empty list.

REGRESSION : Last worked in version 8u191

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
Add -Djavax.accessibility.assistive_technologies flag (empty list) to run any java program with a awt/swing component.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Load no assistive technologies classes.
ACTUAL -
java.awt.AWTError: Assistive Technology not found:
at java.desktop/java.awt.Toolkit.newAWTError(Toolkit.java:472)

Exception trying to load empty string "" assistive technology.

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
Create an empty implementation subclassing javax.accessibility.AccessibilityProvider and provide that class as -Djavax.accessibility.assistive_technologies so the list is not empty.

FREQUENCY : always