[arch-general] How to have multiple JDKs parallel?

[Peter Nabbefeld]

Am 17.09.18 um 15:58 schrieb Eli Schwartz via arch-general:
> On 9/17/18 7:50 AM, Peter Nabbefeld wrote:
>> Sorry, I accidently sent my earlier response to Olli privately. So one
>> question has been lost:
>>
>> Probably, pacman could be extended with an option to change the update
>> strategy from replace to add?
>>
>> This would make it a lot easier than building my own packages or even
>> setup a dedicated VM, as I'm changing JDKs in my IDE on a per-project
>> base. This just ensures I'm not using newer features for environments
>> where I cannot use those. BTW, I'm feeling comfortable to use the latest
>> JDK, but I just want to be able to try out solutions for older ones with
>> possibly missing features (or just older class file version numbers).
>> E.g. in some cases some environments cannot work with newer class file
>> versions, one prominent piece being Maven, as far as I read on some
>> mailing lists (some plugins seemed to reject work with projects using
>> JDK 9, but as I still use JDK 8, currently, it's not been my problem).
> This option already exists. pacman asks you if you want to replace the
> one with the other. Just say "no".
>
> The packages neither provide nor conflict each other, so there's
> absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. Admittedly, it's no longer a
> repo package so it's unsupported, but that was the case whether it was
> moved to the AUR or deleted with a replaces.
>
> ...
>
> You will get prompted again and again on every pacman -Su "to see if
> you're finally ready to do the replacement".
>
That's what I don't want - if I accidently don't type the "n" for some 
reason, the JDK will be raplaced. While I could re-install it from the 
repo's cache, this is a bit inconvinient. Just adding and moving to the 
new one would be great.

Kind regards
Peter