This method returns a list of Java VirtualMachineDescriptor elements. The list is an aggregation of the virtual machine descriptor lists obtained by invoking the listVirtualMachines method of all installed attach providers . If there are no Java virtual machines known to any provider then an empty list is returned.

This method obtains the list of attach providers by invoking the AttachProvider.providers() method. It then iterates overs the list and invokes each provider's attachVirtualMachine method in turn. If a provider successfully attaches then the iteration terminates, and the VirtualMachine created by the provider that successfully attached is returned by this method. If the attachVirtualMachine method of all providers throws AttachNotSupportedException then this method also throws AttachNotSupportedException . This means that AttachNotSupportedException is thrown when the identifier provided to this method is invalid, or the identifier corresponds to a Java virtual machine that does not exist, or none of the providers can attach to it. This exception is also thrown if AttachProvider.providers() returns an empty list.

This method first invokes the provider() method of the given virtual machine descriptor to obtain the attach provider. It then invokes the attach provider's attachVirtualMachine to attach to the target VM.

After detaching from the virtual machine, any further attempt to invoke operations on that virtual machine will cause an IOException to be thrown. If an operation (such as loadAgent for example) is in progress when this method is invoked then the behaviour is implementation dependent. In other words, it is implementation specific if the operation completes or throws IOException .

If already detached from the virtual machine then invoking this method has no effect.

A JVM TI client is called an agent . It is developed in a native language. A JVM TI agent is deployed in a platform specific manner but it is typically the platform equivalent of a dynamic library. Alternatively, it may be statically linked into the VM. This method causes the given agent library to be loaded into the target VM (if not already loaded or if not statically linked into the VM). It then causes the target VM to invoke the Agent_OnAttach function or, for a statically linked agent named 'L', the Agent_OnAttach_L function as specified in the JVM Tools Interface specification. Note that the Agent_OnAttach[_L] function is invoked even if the agent library was loaded prior to invoking this method.

The agent library provided is the name of the agent library. It is interpreted in the target virtual machine in an implementation-dependent manner. Typically an implementation will expand the library name into an operating system specific file name. For example, on UNIX systems, the name L might be expanded to libL.so , and located using the search path specified by the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If the agent named 'L' is statically linked into the VM then the VM must export a function named Agent_OnAttach_L .

If the Agent_OnAttach[_L] function in the agent library returns an error then an AgentInitializationException is thrown. The return value from the Agent_OnAttach[_L] can then be obtained by invoking the returnValue method on the exception.

This convenience method works as if by invoking: loadAgentLibrary (agentLibrary, null);

public abstract void loadAgentPath(String agentPath,
                                   String options)
                            throws AgentLoadException,
                                   AgentInitializationException,
                                   IOException

public void loadAgentPath(String agentPath)
                   throws AgentLoadException,
                          AgentInitializationException,
                          IOException

public abstract void loadAgent(String agent,
                               String options)
                        throws AgentLoadException,
                               AgentInitializationException,
                               IOException

public void loadAgent(String agent)
               throws AgentLoadException,
                      AgentInitializationException,
                      IOException

public abstract Properties getSystemProperties()
                                        throws IOException

public abstract Properties getAgentProperties()
                                       throws IOException

public abstract void startManagementAgent(Properties agentProperties)
                                   throws IOException

public abstract String startLocalManagementAgent()
                                          throws IOException

public int hashCode()

public boolean equals(Object ob)

public String toString()