RFR: 8305895: Implement JEP 450: Compact Object Headers (Experimental) [v19]

[Roman Kennke]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:23:24 GMT, Roman Kennke <rkennke at openjdk.org> wrote:

>>> @rkennke How important is the 4-byte saving on `byte, char, short, int, float` arrays? I'd assume they are not generally that small, at least a few elements? So could we make an exception, and have a `16-byte` offset to the payload of all these primitive (and maybe all) arrays, at least under `AlignVector`?
>> 
>> For byte[] and to some extend for char[] it is quite important, because those are the backing types for String and related classes, and Java apps often have *many* of them, and also quite small. I would not want to to sacrifize them for vectorization, especially not for the relatively uncommon (I think) case of mixed type access.
>
>> @rkennke Ok, fair enough. As far as I know, we at Oracle do not super care about strict alignment `AlignVector`. But maybe other people care, and have to make that tradeoff between vectorization and small object headers.
> 
> BTW, this problem is not specific to UseCompactObjectHeaders - I think the same problem would happen with -UseCompressedClassPointers. With uncompressed class-pointers, byte[] would start at offset 20, while long[] start at offset 24. But nobody cares about -UCCP I think.
> 
> What is the failure mode, though? When running with -UCOH and +AlignVector, would it crash or misbehave? Or would it (silently?) not vectorize? I think we could live with the latter, but not with the former.

> @rkennke It just will (silently) not vectorize, thus running slower but still correct.

Ok, I think we can live with that for now.

As said elsewhere, we are currently working on 4-byte-headers, which would make that problem go away.

The tests need fixing, though.

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PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/20677#issuecomment-2483234723