class initialization check overhead

Thu Oct 24 01:21:00 GMT 2002

Adam Megacz wrote:
>> Or perhaps give gcj a list of classes that you know will be referenced
> eventually, and have it run those <clinit>s immediately upon startup.
> You'd have to have a way to figure out the dependency tree... is there
> enough information at runtime to do this? If not, this would either
> require modifications to the linker, which is probably a bad idea.
>
We have to be very careful in modifying the initialization code, since 
JLS places some very specific requirements on the order of initialization.
Effectively, all <clinit> *must* run lazily, i.e. at the latest possible 
time before the class is used. The reason for this is that <clinit>'s 
may depend on one another, so it it not until runtime it can be 
determined if there are cyclic problems, and how they should be resolved...
Kresten