Question on C1's as_ValueType(ciConstant value)

[Krystal Mok]

Hi compiler team,

I'd like to ask a question about a piece of code in C1. The code snippet
below is from the tip version of jdk9/hs-comp.

145 ValueType* as_ValueType(ciConstant value) {
146   switch (value.basic_type()) {
147     case T_BYTE   : // fall through
148     case T_CHAR   : // fall through
149     case T_SHORT  : // fall through
150     case T_BOOLEAN: // fall through
151     case T_INT    : return new IntConstant   (value.as_int   ());
152     case T_LONG   : return new LongConstant  (value.as_long  ());
153     case T_FLOAT  : return new FloatConstant (value.as_float ());
154     case T_DOUBLE : return new DoubleConstant(value.as_double());
155     case T_ARRAY  : // fall through (ciConstant doesn't have an array
accessor)
156     case T_OBJECT : return new ObjectConstant(value.as_object());
157   }
158   ShouldNotReachHere();
159   return illegalType;
160 }

On lines 155 and 156, both basic types T_ARRAY and T_OBJECT turns into a
ObjectConstant.
That's not consistent with the handling in GraphKit::load_constant(), where
ArrayConstant, InstanceConstant and ObjectConstant are treated separately.

I ran into this inconsistency when I wanted to try out something with array
constants. But I was only able to reach the constant from an
ObjectConstant, instead of an ArrayConstant like I was expecting.

If people agree that this inconsistency should be fixed, I'd be happy to
provide a patch and test it.

Thanks,
Kris
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