RFR: JDK-8266670: Better modeling of access flags in core reflection [v3]

[Mandy Chung]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 21:00:45 GMT, Joe Darcy <darcy at openjdk.org> wrote:

>> This is an early review of changes to better model JVM access flags, that is "modifiers" like public, protected, etc. but explicitly at a VM level.
>> 
>> Language level modifiers and JVM level access flags are closely related, but distinct. There are concepts that overlap in the two domains (public, private, etc.), others that only have a language-level modifier (sealed), and still others that only have an access flag (synthetic).
>> 
>> The existing java.lang.reflect.Modifier class is inadequate to model these subtleties. For example, the bit positions used by access flags on different kinds of elements overlap (such as "volatile" for fields and "bridge" for methods. Just having a raw integer does not provide sufficient context to decode the corresponding language-level string. Methods like Modifier.methodModifiers() were introduced to cope with this situation.
>> 
>> With additional modifiers and flags on the horizon with projects like Valhalla, addressing the existent modeling deficiency now ahead of time is reasonable before further strain is introduced.
>> 
>> This PR in its current form is meant to give the overall shape of the API. It is missing implementations to map from, say, method modifiers to access flags, taking into account overlaps in bit positions.
>> 
>> The CSR https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8281660 will be filled in once the API is further along.
>
> Joe Darcy has updated the pull request incrementally with one additional commit since the last revision:
> 
>   Respond to review feedback explicitly stating returned sets are immutable.

I'm glad to see this proposal moving along to better model the JVM access flags.   I think it's right to define a better enhanced API than updating `java.lang.reflect.Modifier` (which is indeed inadequate to provide the sufficient context for modeling).

I also think `AccessFlag` is a good class name that well represents the `access_flags` in a class file per the JVM spec.

-------------

PR: https://git.openjdk.java.net/jdk/pull/7445