RFR: 8372696: Allow boot classes to explicitly opt-in for final field trusting [v7]

[Quan Anh Mai]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:03:10 GMT, Chen Liang <liach at openjdk.org> wrote:

>> Currently, the hotspot compiler (as in ciField) trusts final fields in hidden classes, record classes, and selected jdk packages. Some classes in the JDK wish to be trusted, but they cannot apply package-wide opt-in due to other legacy classes in the package, such as java.util.
>> 
>> They currently can use `@Stable` as a workaround, but this is fragile because a stable final field may hold a trusted null, zero, or false value, which is currently treated as non-constant by ciField.
>> 
>> We should add an annotation to opt-in for a whole class, mainly for legacy packages. This would benefit greatly some of our classes already using a lot of Stable, such as java.util.Optional, whose empty instance is now constant-foldable, as demonstrated in a new IR test.
>> 
>> Paging @minborg who requested Optional folding for review.
>> 
>> I think we can remove redundant Stable in a few other java.util classes after this patch is integrated. I plan to do that in subsequent patches.
>
> Chen Liang has updated the pull request incrementally with one additional commit since the last revision:
> 
>   Move the test to a core library purposed directory

What I mean by stronger is that trusted final fields only ensure that their values are unchanged after initialization. Strict fields are unchanged unconditionally, there is only 1 observable state for a strict field of an object. As a result, in addition to constant folding, we can do load hoisting, too. So my question is why this annotation does not try to enforce a stronger invariant so that we can benefit from those invariants without having to wait for strict fields.

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PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28540#issuecomment-3668379612