class metadata (was Re: GCJ information)

Fri Dec 14 01:15:00 GMT 2001

Tom Tromey wrote:
>One more thing while we're talking about changing class layout and
>representation: we need a way to associate some data with a given
>method on a per-interpreter basis. This would clean up some of the
>mess we currently have; see _Jv_MethodBase, _Jv_InterpMethod and
>_Jv_JNIMethod. Also this would be helpful when integrating ORP.
>
Well the simple/fast/obvious solution is just to add another field to 
_Jv_Method ;-)
It'll just be a null pointer for compiled code that doesn't use JNI, so 
won't effect const-ness in the common case. And an extra (null) word per 
method probibly isn't a huge size loss, after all we already added one 
for the "throws" list.
It would certainly be nice to clean up the "special" relationship that 
JNI seems to have with the interpreter.
regards
Bryce.