properties - In java -D what does the D stand for?

Question

What does the D in

-Dproperty=value

Set a system property value.

of the java application launcher stand for? For some reason it's been bothering me, why D?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12518728/in-java-d-what-does-the-d-stand-for

Answer 1

I've always assumed it was to define the value of a property... possibly a legacy from C compilers, which often use -D as similar to #define in code.

EDIT: The closest I have to a source for this at the moment is some JDK 1.1 documentation which specifies the flag as:

Redefines a property value. propertyName is the name of the property whose value you want to change and newValue is the value to change it to. [...]

That at least contains the word "redefine" which is close to "define" :)