Re: Language extensions ?

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

Tom Tromey writes:
 > >>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com> writes:
 > 
 > Tom> You can use gnu.gcj.RawData as a system-dependent pointer-sized
 > Tom> value.  However you can't really do anything with this value
 > Tom> other than pass it around.  It isn't treated like a real pointer;
 > Tom> for instance the GC doesn't examine fields of this type.
 > 
 > Andrew> Ouch.  Do we really want to support gnu.gcj.RawData as part of
 > Andrew> our API?
 > 
 > We already do; it is documented in gcj.texi as part of CNI.

Oh dear.

 > That said, I'm leery of adding magical methods to it to implement
 > pointer math.  First, there are the security model considerations.

Well, once the security model is done we can restrict it so that only
privileged code can create RawData objects.

 > Second, why not just use CNI in this situation?  That's what it is
 > there for, and it isn't like code using RawData extensions would be
 > portable Java anyway.

Exactly.  Just say No!  

AFAICS RawMemoryAccess already provides everything that anyone might
need, in a reasonably clean and well-factored package.  We just need
an impementation.

Andrew.