OpenJDK 9: Limitations/shortcomings of the Jshell

Jshell is a quite powerful tool to do some quick explorations and to write some scripts.

If found the following limitations:

• No syntax highlighting
• Only comments with // are allowed
  if you open a script file with
   /**
    *  My comments
    */
  this will work only many warnings.
  

  |  Error:
  |  illegal start of expression
  |   * Copyright (c) 1995, 2008, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
  |   ^
  |  Error:
  |  illegal start of expression
  |   *
  |   ^

• The usage of public, static, ... is quite different:
  

  -> public class MyClass {
  >> public int a;
  >> };
  |  Warning:
  |  Modifier 'public'  not permitted in top-level declarations, ignored
  |  public class MyClass {
  |  ^----^
  |  Added class MyClass this error is corrected:
  |      Modifier 'public'  not permitted in top-level declarations, ignored
  |      public class MyClass {
  |      ^----^

  
  
• If you want to load a scipt with /open then tab completion does not work. The complete path including filename has to be typed / pasted.
• If you load some example snippet, main(String[] args) is not run by default.
  Just tried with the swing tutorial from oracle:
  

  jshell Downloads/HelloWorldSwing.java  

  -> String[] mystringarray;
  |  Added variable mystringarray of type String[]
  
  -> HelloWorldSwing.main(mystringarray); 

• .. 

to be continued...