RFR: 8366024: Remove unnecessary InstanceKlass::cast()

[Andrew Dinn]

On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 23:45:41 GMT, Ioi Lam <iklam at openjdk.org> wrote:

> We have a lot of `InstanceKlass::cast(k)` calls where `k` is statically known to be an `InstanceKlass`. I fixed many instances of this pattern:
> 
> 
> InstanceKlass* x = ....;
> Klass* s = x->super(); // should call java_super()
> InstanceKlass::cast(s)->xyz();
> 
> 
> The `super()` method has a very confusing API. It has the return type of `Klass*` because for for an `ObjArrayKlass` like `[Ljava/lang/String;`:
> 
> - `super()` returns `[Ljava/lang/Object;`
> - `java_super()` returns `Ljava/lang/Object;`
> 
> However, for `[Ljava/lang/Object;`, all `TypeArrayKlasses` and all `InstanceKlasses`, `super()` and `java_super()` return an identical value of that always have the actual type of `InstanceKlass*`.
> 
> See here about the difference between `super()` and `java_super()`: https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/blob/7b9969dc8f20989497ff617abb45543d182b684d/src/hotspot/share/oops/klass.hpp#L218-L221
> 
> Unfortunately, we have a lot of code that incorrectly uses `super()` instead of `java_super()`, which leads to ` InstanceKlass::cast()` calls. I tried to fixed a bunch of easy ones in this PR, although there are a few more to go.
> 
> I also fixed some calls to `local_interafaces()->at()` that widens the return type for `InstanceKlass*` to `Klass*`, which may lead to unnecessary  ` InstanceKlass::cast()` calls.
> 
> I also removed the `Klass::superklass()` API. This was used only in a few places and all of them can be safely replaced with `Klass::java_super()`.
> 
> To avoid confusion, I think we should rename `super()` to something more obvious, but let's do that in a future PR.

I found two more occurrences of casting super() to InstanceKlass:

    src/hotspot/share/jfr/leakprofiler/chains/edgeUtils.cpp:79

        ik = (const InstanceKlass*)ik->super();

    src/hotspot/share/prims/jni.cpp:209

        Klass* field_klass = k;
        Klass* super_klass = field_klass->super();
        // With compressed oops the most super class with nonstatic fields would
        // be the owner of fields embedded in the header.
        while (InstanceKlass::cast(super_klass)->has_nonstatic_fields() &&
               InstanceKlass::cast(super_klass)->contains_field_offset(offset)) {
          field_klass = super_klass;   // super contains the field also
          super_klass = field_klass->super();
        }

The first one ought perhaps to be using InstanceKlass::superklass()?

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PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/26908#issuecomment-3227432942