user.dir property

Sat Apr 1 00:00:00 GMT 2000

Kresten, regarding chdir(), place your vote at:
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4045688.html
Somewhat related is also:
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4156278.html
As an aside, note that Mac's MRJ is said to honor changes in user.dir.
In my own project, I also honor it and I allow for a new user.dir
property to be passed to new processes.
Regarding Jeff's comment that 
> System properties are set by the VM during initialization, and
> apparently never re-examined.

I believe this depends on the specific property. user.dir is not
reexamined because of the threading concerns you mentioned. But
others are: for instance, http.proxyHost and http.proxyPort are
examined every time a http URL is opened (as of 1.2). This allows
an application to prompt a user for their firewall/proxy host. Of 
course, this is just a consequence of the (bad) decision to use user 
properties to specify the http proxy, but I think it shows that 
there are no "rules" as far as properties are concerned. Sun's just 
making it up as they go.
	- Godmar