This is the mail archive of the gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org mailing list for the GCC project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: PATCH: Improve Java build times


On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 04:34:37PM -0600, Tom Tromey wrote:
> There's other weird, dead code in gcj.  For instance look for
> JAVA_USE_HANDLES.  I'm not really sure what either of these options
> was intended for.  I'm definitely in favor of removing any code that
> has sat unused for years...

The original Java implementations represented objects using an
extra level of indirection - i.e. similar to Mac OS "handles".
An object reference was a pointer to a two-word structure, where
one of the words in turn pointed to the actual fields.  I'm not
sure, but I think Kaffe also used to do that.

The use of handles was exposed in the original (pre-JNI) native
interface.

While I preferred to avoid handles, I thought at one point we might
want to support them - it might potentially enable binary compatibility
with JDK.  I don't remember it it was required for source compatibility
of native code - it probably depended on how teh native code as written.
So if JAVA_USE_HANDLES was defined, gcj would use the extra indirection.

There is no reason to keep the code around any longer.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://www.bothner.com/per/


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]