Constant Descriptors usage and Latest versions

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For 1 and 3, there's currently Classfile context object migration, so
I think I can create an issue and send a pull request to Adam's fork
updating the Classfile interface.

For 2, this problem is actually more related to the Constant API, for
Constant Descriptors themselves are prime candidates to be Constable,
as they are already immutable. I just happened to find that we
construct reusable MethodTypeDesc each time a method is called in the
SystemModulesPlugin migration, which makes my attempts to speed up
MethodTypeDesc::descriptorString less meaningful. I can create an
issue and a patch to convert existing JDK usages to use from static
final fields whenever possible; and we can additionally update the API
specification asking users to store in static final fields like for
the Vector API.

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 9:53 AM Brian Goetz <brian.goetz at oracle.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > 1. LATEST_MAJOR_VERSION and LATEST_MINOR_VERSION should become static
> > methods: otherwise, javac will inline the constant values, making a
> > program compiled with an older JDK unable to fetch the latest Major
> > class file version.
>
> Good catch.
>
> > 2. Many usages (in user code) of Constant Descriptors from
> > java.lang.constant package are somewhat inefficient: for instance,
> > ClassDesc and MethodTypeDesc should both be stored in static final
> > fields than constructed on each call; MethodTypeDesc should be
> > constructed with a parameter array instead of with a descriptor
> > string, as descriptor string parsing has been proven slow in recent
> > benchmarks.
>
> The XxxDesc-accepting methods were built on top of XxxEntry-accepting
> methods, so you should be able to do everything you need (just with
> fewer seat belts) by constructing constant pool entries using UTF8
> descriptors.
>
> Are there other changes you want to suggest here, or are you making a
> suggestion for the docs?  Having a section on constant pool entries /
> descriptors in the package javadoc would make sense.
>
> > 3. We should probably have a set of char constants for annotation tags
> > in Classfile as well.
> >
>
> Seems reasonable.
>
> No objections to any of this.  Would you like to propose something concrete?