Interface dispatch changes

[Bryce McKinlay]

I am pleased to announce that we have (finally!) been able to commit my
implementation of Per Bothner's design for Constant-time interface
method lookup and type checking. The patches are in cvs as of tonight
and will be in the next snapshot releases. This means that we should see
a huge performance increase for interface calls and some smaller
improvements in other areas.

Unfortunatly this does mean that compatibility with earlier versions of
the compiler/runtime has been broken. If you download the latest gcj,
please be sure to get the latest libgcj as well (and vice-versa).
Version mismatch may result in strange behaviour!

Please go forth and test/benchmark, and let me know about any problems.

The gcj patch:
 http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2000-03/msg00208.html

The libgcj patch:
 http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-patches/2000-q1/msg00202.html

And the message that inspired it!:
 http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-discuss/1999-q3/msg00377.html

regards

  [ bryce ]