Null-terminated Unicode strings in java.io on Windows

[Robert Lougher]

Hi Mark,

On Jan 25, 2008 10:16 PM, Mark Wielaard <mark at klomp.org> wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> Robert Lougher <rob.lougher at ...> writes:
> > This is getting a bit hostile for no reason....  Thinking about
> > alignment gives an interesting solution.
> >
> > 1) Strings are not null-terminated
> > 2) For most strings the alignment gives the VM room to terminate in
> > place when GetStringChars is called
> > 3) Copy strings that can't be terminated in place.
>
> Note that Strings have a backing [j]char array which can be shared between
> different Strings, and often are when read in in one go and then split in
> different sub-String objects. All these Strings have a shared slice of this
> backing jchar array, so there isn't any place to terminate it because that place
> will overlap with another slice that can belong to another String.
>

Whoops, you're right :)

> You should know, because I learned all I know about this and pinning of the
> backing storage of a String (not the String object itself) by reading your jamvm
> code! :)
>
> BTW. I would really recommend anybody wanting to know how the VM and JNI specs
> truly work/can be implemented in practice take a look at jamvm, it is a truly
> remarkable clear, concise and small implementation. Nothing bad about other
> runtimes, but jamvm is small enough that you can read the code, sit down with
> the spec and compare them almost directly to get a really nice insight in how
> things are/can be done.
>

How many beers did we agree I'll buy you at FOSDEM? ;)

Rob.

> Cheers,
>
> Mark
>
>