RFR: 8060130: Simplify the synchronization of defining and getting java.lang.Package

[David M. Lloyd]

On 10/10/2014 07:31 PM, Mandy Chung wrote:
>
> On 10/10/2014 8:10 AM, Claes Redestad wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> please review this patch which attempts to clean up synchronization
>> and improve scalability when
>> defining and getting java.lang.Package objects.
>
> I agree with David that getting Package objects are not performance
> critical. On the other hand, the code defining/getting Packages is
> old and deserves some cleanup especially the synchronization part.

I have a little more information on this subject.  We've a possible (and 
somewhat likely) deadlock which occurs because one thread can attempt to 
define a system class while holding the java.lang.Package#pkgs lock, 
while another thread can attempt to get a package while defining a 
system class (while holding the class loader lock).  I do not recall 
whether parallel class loading alleviates this issue.  We solved the 
problem by loading Packages.getPackages() in early (single-threaded) 
bootstrap.

So from my perspective, just getting rid of the synchronization on that 
field alone makes this change worthwhile.
-- 
- DML