Specify distribution via java-version-file

[tsawada]

Currently, setup-java requires distribution field. However, one can specify a distribution in .java-version thus the distribution input field can be redundant or even confusing when these two disagree.

It'd be great if distribution field is optional and can be configured via .java-version file.

[priya-kinthali]

Hello @tsawada 👋,
Thank you for this feature request. We will investigate it and get back to you as soon as we have some feedback.

[skateball]

Hi @tsawada ,
have you checked to not use a distribution in the yml file?

To me the following should work and use a recent temurin 21 release

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-java@v4
  with:
    java-version: '21'
- run: java HelloWorldApp.java

Regards Christian

[lukaszgyg]

Related work landed in PR #975: it makes distribution optional when java-version-file points to a .sdkmanrc that already carries the SDKMAN distribution suffix, for example java=21.0.5-tem.

[brunoborges]

Tracked under the epic #1048 (infer Java version/distribution from project files), which groups the related file-based detection requests for consistent design. This issue stays open as the specific sub-request.