[Bug java/15474] libgcj jar file should always be in classpath at runtime

[mckinlay at redhat dot com]

------- Additional Comments From mckinlay at redhat dot com  2004-08-25 17:52 -------
As Mark suggests, the harm is that adding extra things to the classpath will
cause these .jar files to be opened and searched for classes. That could slow
down runtime start-up and increase memory usage.

Even if our classloaders are smart enough to avoid looking in .jar files for
classes that are compiled in to libgcj.so, they will still have to look when
someone does, for example, a Class.forName() on a non-existant class. This
actually happens all the time when loading ResourceBundles, for example, so even
a well-written application can't easily avoid it.

With well-written classloaders, however, it should be possible to minimize the
overhead - so I'm not totally against this idea if it prooves to be useful. We
just have to be careful about minimizing the cost.


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http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=15474