IBM DevOps Test Performance CustomCode Requires External Jars for Java 17

Problem

Custom code provided to or developed by customers for use with test scripts is developed for a specific point in time along the Java lifecycle. As Java moves forward, the custom code is subject to changes in Java itself.

An example came to light recently. Custom code was written to use the nashorn script engine to run JavaScript. 

For e.g.,:

 // Create the JS Engine 

   ScriptEngineManager manager = new ScriptEngineManager();

   ScriptEngine engine = manager.getEngineByName("javascript");
   …
   for (String libFile : libFiles){

     FileReader libFileReader;

     try {

       libFileReader = new FileReader(libFile);

       engine.eval(libFileReader);

     } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {

       tlm.reportMessage("message 1");

       return null;

     } catch (ScriptException se) {

       tlm.reportMessage("message 2");

       return null;

     }

When run with IBM DevOps Test Performance (Test Performance) v11.0.4, a NullPointerException will occur because the engine value is set to null.