Multiple this$1 fields when mixing subclassing and inner classes

[Stefan Reich]

Consider these classes:

class A {
  class InnerA {}
}
class B extends A {
  class InnerB extends InnerA {}
}

When I run some introspection on B.InnerB, I find HotSpot producing this
object layout:

Size of object B$InnerB: 24 bytes
  Field A$InnerA . this$1 is at offset 12
  Field B$InnerB . this$1 is at offset 16

So the object has *two* outer references, one of type A and one of type B.

That is all fair and good, but: These two references *will always point to
the same object*. This follows from the syntactic rules on the Java level.
(<< Crucial part of the argument, so - is this correct?)

So, the question is: Wouldn't it save some RAM to just have one "this$1"
field?

The only downside would be that accesses to this$1 from code inside InnerB
would require a cast, as the remaining this$1 field would formally only
have type A.

I'm curious as to where there has ever been deliberation of this?

Best regards,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Reich
BotCompany.de // Java-based operating systems