RELEASE NOTES: JDK 8u112

Fixed memory leak when Java objects are passed into JavaScript

The bug fix for JDK-8089861, which was first integrated in JDK 8u102, fixes a memory leak when Java objects are passed into JavaScript. Prior to JDK 8u102, the WebView JavaScript runtime held a strong reference to such bound objects, which prevented them from being garbage collected. After the fix for JDK-8089861, the WebView JavaScript runtime uses weak references to refer to bound Java objects. The specification was updated to make it clear that this is the intended behavior.

Applications which rely on the previously unspecified behavior might be affected by the updated behavior if the application does not hold a strong reference to an object passed to JavaScript. In such case, the Java object might be garbage collected prematurely. The solution is to modify the application to hold a strong reference in Java code for objects that should remain live after being passed into JavaScript.

Introduced a new window ordering model

On the OS X platform, the AWT framework used native services to implement a parent-child relationship for windows. That caused some negative visual effects especially in multi-monitor environments. To get rid of disadvantages of such an approach, the new window ordering model, which is fully implemented at JDK layer, was introduced. Its main principles are listed below: - A window should be placed above its nearest parent window. - If a window has several child windows, all child windows should be located at the same layer and the window from the active window chain should be ordered above its siblings. - Ordering should not be performed for a window that is in an iconified state or when the transition to iconified state is in progress.

These rules are applied to every frame or dialog from the window hierarchy which contains the currently focused window.

Trackpad scrolling of text on OS X 10.12 Sierra is very fast

The MouseWheelEvent.getWheelRotation() method returned rounded native NSEvent deltaX/Y events on Mac OS X. The latest macOS Sierra 10.12 produces very small NSEvent deltaX/Y values so rounding and summing them leads to the huge value returned from the MouseWheelEvent.getWheelRotation(). The JDK-8166591 fix accumulates NSEvent deltaX/Y and the MouseWheelEvent.getWheelRotation() method returns non-zero values only when the accumulated value exceeds a threshold and zero value. This is compliant with the MouseWheelEvent.getWheelRotation() specification:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/awt/event/MouseWheelEvent.html#getWheelRotation--

Returns the number of "clicks" the mouse wheel was rotated, as an integer. A partial rotation may occur if the mouse supports a high-resolution wheel. In this case, the method returns zero until a full "click" has been accumulated.

For the precise wheel rotation values, use the MouseWheelEvent.getPreciseWheelRotation() method instead.

SunPKCS11 Provider no longer offering SecureRandom by default

SecureRandom.PKCS11 from the SunPKCS11 Provider is disabled by default on Solaris because the native PKCS11 implementation has poor performance and is not recommended. If your application requires SecureRandom.PKCS11, you can re-enable it by removing "SecureRandom" from the disabledMechanisms list in conf/security/sunpkcs11-solaris.cfg

Performance improvements have also been made in the java.security.SecureRandom class. Improvements in the JDK implementation has allowed for synchronization to be removed from the java.security.SecureRandom.nextBytes(byte[] bytes) method.

IANA Data 2016i

JDK contains IANA time zone data version 2016i. For more information, refer to Timezone Data Versions in the JRE Software.