JDK6 backwards compatible AutoCloseable from a libraries perspective

[Michael Bien]

  On 02/07/2011 03:32 PM, Rémi Forax wrote:
>    Le 07/02/2011 15:08, Michael Bien a écrit :
>>     On 02/07/2011 02:40 PM, Rémi Forax wrote:
>>>      Le 07/02/2011 14:10, Michael Bien a écrit :
>>>>       Hello everyone,
>>>>
>>>> I would like to support the new try-with-resource feature in jocl while
>>>> staying backwards compatible with JDK5/6. The problem is that
>>>> AutoCloseable resides in java.lang which means i have no chance to load
>>>> the class if i would ship it for jdk5 backwards compatibility.
>>>>
>>>> Providing two builds for JOCL is not what i would like to do just to be
>>>> able to be upwards compatible.
>>>>
>>>> any ideas what i could do in this situation?
>>>>
>>>> best regards,
>>>> michael
>>> You need to:
>>> Create a jocl internal equivalent to java.lang.AutoClosable, let say
>>> jocl.lang.AutoClosable,
>>> this class should extends java.lang.AutoClosable.
>>> modify you managed classes to implements  jocl.lang.AutoClosable.
>>> compile with javac -source 7 -target 7
>>> Now you have a 1.7 compatible version.
>>>
>>> The trick is to downgrade the classfiles to have a 1.5 compatible version.
>>> For this use a bytecode rewriter tools like ASM [1] to change a just
>>> some bits
>>> in the classfiles.
>>>       modify the classfile of jocl.lang.AutoClosable to don't inherits from
>>> java.lang.AutoClosable anymore.
>>>       downgrade the classfiles major version number from 51 (V1_7) to 49 (V1_5)
>>>
>>> In fact, there is a way to avoid to create jocl.lang.AutoClosable, you can
>>> analyze the bytecode to detect call to AutoClosable.close() and replace it
>>> by the type of the variable infered using the same algorithm as the
>>> verifier does.
>>> ASM package org.objectweb.asm.analysis already provides this analysis.
>>>
>>> Rémi
>>>
>>> [1] http://asm.ow2.org/
>>>
>>>
>> Thank you Remi,
>>
>> do i really have to compile with 1.7 language level even if i don't use
>> ARM internally?
> yes, you have to.
> source of the compiler near line 165:
> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7/jdk7/langtools/file/1383d1ee8b5d/src/share/classes/com/sun/tools/javac/code/Source.java
>
> public boolean allowTryWithResources() {
>        return compareTo(JDK1_7)>= 0;
> }
>
>> -michael
> Rémi
>

hmm. In this case it would be much easier (and less risky regarding QA) 
do just use simple string replacement and build the library twice. 
(since we can't create one jar which is compatible in both scenarios)

Once with
  com.jogamp.common.AutoCloseable extends java.lang.AutoCloseable (with 
JDK7 lang level7)
and once with
  com.jogamp.common.AutoCloseable /*extends java.lang.AutoCloseable*/ 
(with JDK6 lang level5)

should have the same effect, right?

michael