Speeding up method searches

[Bryce McKinlay <bryce at albatross dot co dot nz>]

Various routines in libgcj currently perform linear string-comparison
searches in order to locate methods in class method tables - most
notably the reflection code, the interpreter, and interface method table
generation. This is very slow, and would also represent a significant
bottleneck for anyone wanting to implement a JIT compiler on the libgcj
platform.

Now, if the compiler could sort the methods table alphanumerically, we
should be able to get a huge speed increase in all these places by doing
a simple binary search.

Would it be possible to implement this in the compiler? Or does the
Class::methods table somehow depend on the vtable order of methods?

regards

  [ bryce ]