RFR: 8370914: C2: Reimplement Type::join

Quan Anh Mai qamai at openjdk.org
Thu Oct 30 05:21:32 UTC 2025


Hi,

Currently, `Type::join` is implemented using `Type::dual`. The idea seems to be that the dual of a join would be the meet of the duals of the operands. This helps us avoid the need to implement a separate join operation. The comments also discuss the symmetry of the join and the meet operations, which seems to refer to the various fundamental laws of set union and intersection.

However, it requires us to find a representation of a `Type` class that is symmetric, which may not always be possible without outright dividing its value set into the normal set and the dual set, and effectively implementing join and meet separately (e.g. `TypeInt` and `TypeLong`).

In other cases, the existence of dual types introduces additional values into the value set of a `Type` class. For example, a pointer can be a nullable pointer (`BotPTR`), a not-null pointer (`NotNull`), a not-null constant (`Constant`), a null constant (`Null`), an impossible value (`TopPTR`), and `AnyNull`? This is really hard to conceptualize even when we know that `AnyNull` is the dual of `NotNull`. It also does not really work, which leads to us sprinkling `above_centerline` checks all over the place. Additionally, the number of combinations in a meet increases quadratically with respect to the number of instances of a `Type`. This makes the already hard problem of meeting 2 complicated sets a nightmare to understand.

This PR reimplements `Type::join` as a separate operation and removes most of the `dual` concept from the `Type` class hierachy. There are a lot of benefits of this:

- It makes the operation much more intuitive, and changes to `Type` classes can be made easier. Instead of thinking about type lattices and how the representation places the `Type` objects on the lattices, it is much easier to conceptualize a join when we think a `Type` as a set of possible values.
- It tightens the invariants of the classes in the hierachy. Instead of having 5 possible `ptr()` value when a `TypeInstPtr` participating in a meet/join operation, there are only 3 left (`AnyNull` is non-sensical and `TopPTR` must be an `AnyPtr`). This, in turns, reduces the number of combinations in a meet/join from 25 to 9, making it much easier to reason about.

This PR also tries to limit the interaction between unrelated types. For example, meeting and joining of a float and an int seem to happen only when we try to do those operations on the array types of those types. Limiting these peculiar operations to the places they happen makes it easier to catch unexpected interactions. It also helps us avoid sprinkling a bunch of cases in each meet and join method.

Future work:

- More cleanup can be made. I purposely avoid modifying the `xmeet` methods too much. There is a lot of room for simplification since the number of operand combinations has decreased significantly.
- Remove the remaining remnants of `dual` such as `TypeInt::_dual` and `TypePtr::above_centerline`.
- Stronger invariants can probably be asserted. For example, it seems that we can enforce that no instance with the concrete type being `TypeOopPtr` can be made, or `TypePtr` cannot be made with `BotPTR`.

Please take a look and leave your reviews, thanks a lot.

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Commit messages:
 - whitespace
 - Reimplement Type::join

Changes: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28051/files
  Webrev: https://webrevs.openjdk.org/?repo=jdk&pr=28051&range=00
  Issue: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8370914
  Stats: 1905 lines in 7 files changed: 850 ins; 634 del; 421 mod
  Patch: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28051.diff
  Fetch: git fetch https://git.openjdk.org/jdk.git pull/28051/head:pull/28051

PR: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28051


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