To find out about the current working environment, applets can read system properties. System properties are key/value pairs that contain information such as the operating system that the applet is running under. System properties are covered in detail in the Properties page.

Applets can read some, but not all, system properties.

System Properties that Applets Can Read

Applets can read the following system properties:

Valid System Properties

Key	Meaning
"file.separator"	File separator (for example, "/")
"java.class.version"	Java class version number
"java.vendor"	Java vendor-specific string
"java.vendor.url"	Java vendor URL
"java.version"	Java version number
"line.separator"	Line separator
"os.arch"	Operating system architecture
"os.name"	Operating system name
"path.separator"	Path separator (for example, ":")

To read a system property from within an applet, the applet uses the System class method getProperty. For example:

String newline = System.getProperty("line.separator");

The following applet reads all of the properties that are available to all applets:

Sample Output

You can find the source code in GetOpenProperties.java.

Forbidden System Properties

For security reasons, no existing browsers or applet viewers let applets read the following system properties.

Forbidden System Properties

Key	Meaning
"java.class.path"	Java classpath
"java.home"	Java installation directory
"user.dir"	User's current working directory
"user.home"	User home directory
"user.name"	User account name