[constables] RFR of constants API

[Brian Goetz]

Robert Field raised the following possible bug in the API of 
MethodHandleDesc.

A Constant_MethodHandle_info has the following contents:
   refKind
   reference to MethodRef or InterfaceMethodRef
   reference to NameAndType

Most of these map directly; we extract refKind from Kind, we extract 
name from name, we extract type descriptor from type. But, it doesn't 
seem like there's a way to express both (refkind=invokespecial, 
Constant_MethodRef_info) and (refkind=invokevirtual, 
Constant_InterfaceMethodRef_info).

One of the inputs to a MHDesc is a Kind enum constant.  Currently, they 
map 1:1 with refKind, but it seems to me we need to differentiate 
between INTERFACE_VIRTUAL and INTERFACE_SPECIAL, where in the latter 
case, refKind=special but we use an InterfaceMethodRef?

On 4/27/2018 1:31 PM, Vicente Romero wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Please review the current proposal of the constants API, which are 
> nominal descriptor types defined in pkg java.lang.invoke.constant. The 
> code can be found at [1]. This API is being developed in the context 
> of JEP 303: Intrinsics for the LDC and INVOKEDYNAMIC Instructions [2]
>
> Thanks in advance for your comments,
> Vicente
>
> [1] http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~vromero/constant.api/webrev.00
> [2] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/303