Java check latest version programmatically

Question

Goal: check java\'s version on a machine (I can get this from java -version). Compare it with latest available from java website

I woul

Answer 1

The answer is actually quite simple. http://java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp issues a request to http://java.com/applet/JreCurrentVersion2.txt. That file currently contains a single version number: '1.7.0_11'...which is the latest and greatest, indeed.

Java code example

try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new URL(
    "http://java.com/applet/JreCurrentVersion2.txt").openStream()))) {
  String fullVersion = br.readLine();
  String version = fullVersion.split("_")[0];
  String revision = fullVersion.split("_")[1];
  System.out.println("Version " + version + " revision " + revision);
} catch (IOException e) {
  // handle properly
}

Update 2014-03-20

Eventhough Java 8 was recently released http://java.com/applet/JreCurrentVersion2.txt currently still returns 1.7.0_51.

Update 2016-07-13

Looks like we need to come back to this every few months... Currently you need to scan http://java.com/en/download/installed8.jsp for a JavaScript variable latest8Version. So, you could run curl -s https://java.com/en/download/installed8.jsp | grep latest8Version.

Update 2018-08-19

http://javadl-esd-secure.oracle.com/update/baseline.version is another hot spot as mentioned in some other answer.