RFR 8068730: Increase the precision of the implementation of java.time.Clock.systemUTC()

[Bernd Eckenfels]

Hello Daniel,

this is good news. I do wonder: is there a plan to make this an
intrinsic(+vsyscall on Linux) just like System.currentTimeMillis()?

Because using it for high precision timestamps would only make sense if
it is similar lightweight.

Greetings
Bernd


 Am Fri, 09 Jan 2015
17:56:28 +0100 schrieb Daniel Fuchs <daniel.fuchs at oracle.com>:

> Hi,
> 
> Please find below a webrev for:
> 
> 8068730: Increase the precision of the implementation
>           of java.time.Clock.systemUTC()
> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8068730
> 
> The java.time.Clock.system() method (and variants thereof) are
> specified to "obtain a clock that returns the current instant
> using best available system clock". However the current
> implementation of the clock returned is based on
> System.currentTimeMillis() whereas the underlying native clock
> used by System.currentTimeMillis() has often a greater precision
> than milliseconds (for instance, on Linux, System.currentTimeMillis()
> is based on gettimeofday, which offers microseconds precision).
> 
> This patch enhances the implementation of the
> java.time.Clock.SystemClock, so that it offer at least the
> same precision than the underlying clock available on the system.
> 
> There is no change in the public API.
> 
> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~dfuchs/webrev_8068730/webrev.00/
> 
> Some more details on the patch:
> 
> native (hotspot) side:
> 
>   - adds a new method to the os class:
>     os::javaTimeSystemUTC(jlong &seconds, jlong &nanos)
>     which allows to get the time in the form of a number
>     of seconds and number of nanoseconds
>     (see os.hpp and various os_<os>.cpp files)
> 
>   - adds a JVM_GetNanoTimeAdjustment method, which takes
>     an offset (in seconds) as parameter and returns a
>     nano time adjustment compared to the offset.
>     Calls os::javaTimeSystemUTC to compute the adjustment
>     (see jvm.cpp)
> 
> java (jdk) side:
> 
>   - adds a native sun.misc.VM.getNanoTimeAdjustment method
>     (which is bound to JVM_GetNanoTimeAdjustment)
>     (see VM.java and VM.c)
> 
>   - modifies java.time.Clock.SystemClock to call the new
>     sun.misc.VM.getNanoTimeAdjustment instead of
>     System.currentTimeMillis.
> 
>   - fixes java.util.Formatter - which wasn't expecting
>     greater than millisecond precision.
> 
> testing:
> 
>   - A new test is added to test sun.misc.VM.getNanoTimeAdjustment
>     In particular it checks the edge cases.
>   - New tests are added to TestClock_System.java to check for
>     the increased precision.
>     There is also a test for the edge cases there.
>   - Some java.time tests where tripped by the increased precision,
>     and had to be modified to take that into account
> 
> Note: comparing the new os::javaTimeSystemUTC with os::javaTimeMillis
>        can help in reviewing the changes.
> 
> best regards,
> 
> -- daniel