Initialization of static data in Java

Thu Nov 19 06:33:00 GMT 1998

One seriously weakness in Java is its ability to initialize static
data tables. This is primarily because the VM does not have the
ability to directly reference memory created by the compiler. Static
data inevitably gets instantiated using hideously long sequences such
as the following extracted from java/lang/Character.class:
 11: newarray byte
 13: dup
 14: iconst_1
 15: iconst_1
 16: bastore
 17: dup
 18: iconst_2
 19: iconst_2
 20: bastore
	... and so on ...
7031: sipush 1023
7034: bipush 121
7036: bastore
7037: putstatic #150=<Field java.lang.Character.X byte[]>
Once compiled to native code this generates about 4-6 native code
instructions for each byte stored and creates a totally bloated and
inefficient initialization for a static table that could be
initialized by the compiler.
I would guess that once gcj can actually compile source code that
these Java pregnancies would go away, but it would be nice if gcj
could collect up all the constants between the `newarray byte' and the
`putstatic' and do them within the compiler, effectively emiting the
same byte table that a C++ compiler would create???
-- 
Jon Olson, Modular Mining Systems
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