RFR: JDK-8210031: implementation for JVM Constants API

[John Rose]

I am running a review of VM-level work on bootstrap methods
which can optionally help simplify some of these APIs:

http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-runtime-dev/2018-September/030084.html

Specifically, this work can be use to implement a "symbolic
expression mode" for BSMs which causes the JVM to unpack
constant pool nodes directly as ConstantDesc items to present
to BSMs.  This might simplify the condy forms of ConstantDesc
instances, if javac stores native constants to reflect, rather than
lists of strings to reassemble.

— John

On Sep 11, 2018, at 12:50 PM, Vicente Romero <vicente.romero at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> Please review the first iteration of the implementation for JEP-334 [1] JVM Constants API. The implementation can be found at [2]. JEP-334 introduces an API to model nominal descriptions of key class-file and run-time artifacts, in particular constants that are loadable from the constant pool and has already been the subject of several discussions. The implementation of this JEP has been publicly accessible throw the amber repo at [3] in the jep-334 branch. Thanks to all members of the Amber project and specially to Brian for all the hard work on the design and the implementation of this API. Thanks for all the feedback we have received so far, most of it has been integrated in the current implementation.
> 
> Thanks,
> Vicente
> 
> [1] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/334
> [2] http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~vromero/8210031/webrev.00/jdk.dev.patch
> [3] http://hg.openjdk.java.net/amber/amber