Fast class reloading

[Igor Adam Klimer]

Ah, but of course. Thank you very much for pointing that out :)
In that case, you were right from the beginning - a custom VM it is.
Thanks for clearing up all the questions I had - I can now start hacking the VM ;) And I hope it's still OK to seek advice here if I get stuck on something along the way? :) (this seemed like the suitable place, but maybe I missed something)

Thanks again and best regards,
Igor Klimer

----- oryginalna wiadomość -----
od: David Holmes <David.Holmes at oracle.com>
data: czwartek, czerwiec 3, 2010 3:51
temat: Re: Fast class reloading
do: Igor Adam Klimer <150043 at student.pwr.wroc.pl>
kopia do: hotspot-runtime-dev at openjdk.java.net

> Igor,
> 
> I think you are assuming the parts of the VM you need to modify 
> are Java classes - hence your idea is to first modify those 
> classes, within the existing limitations, to allow you to remove 
> the limitations. But the VM is C/C++ code not Java - you can't 
> use an agent to modify the VM.
> 
> David
> 
> David Holmes said the following on 06/03/10 11:43:
> >Igor,
> >
> >An agent can't "modify the VM". The agent can only do what the 
> VM lets it - via the JVM TI API defined for agents.
> >
> >David
> >
> >Igor Adam Klimer said the following on 06/03/10 11:40:
> >>Yes, I understand the limitations of an agent. However, it 
> should be possible to modify the VM (within the limitations 
> imposed on the agents) *using* the agent. So in summary: I want 
> to use a "vanilla" agent to modify the VM (that's the part where 
> I'm afraid if an agent is not too limited - because, like you 
> said, we can basically only change method bodies) so that the 
> limitations no longer apply. This would mean that users could 
> use a standard VM that would get "augmented" by the (then still 
> unmodified) agent, so that reloading of classes would be possible.
> >>If my idea still doesn't make sense to you, then it's either 
> really stupid or really unorthodox ;)
> >>
> >>Regards,
> >>Igor Klimer
> >>
> >>----- oryginalna wiadomość -----
> >>od: David Holmes <David.Holmes at oracle.com>
> >>data: czwartek, czerwiec 3, 2010 3:22
> >>temat: Re: Fast class reloading
> >>do: Igor Adam Klimer <150043 at student.pwr.wroc.pl>
> >>kopia do: hotspot-runtime-dev at openjdk.java.net
> >>
> >>>Igor Adam Klimer said the following on 06/02/10 23:16:
> >>>>>An agent can only use functionality exposed by the VM and 
> >>>there is
> >>>>>no VM functionality in existence to do what you want. This 
> has to
> >>>>>be supported by the VM (after which it could be exposed to 
> agents).>>>>>
> >>>>Yes, but from what I understood an agent can also modify the VM's
> >>>>classes - so the idea was to exploit that (eh, "exploit" has 
> a bad
> >>>>sound to it ;)) and modify the VM so that it does include the
> >>>>functionality we need. Does this idea seem reasonable to 
> you? Of
> >>>>course, it would be hard to maintain such "patches", but it would
> >>>>take the burden of installing a custom VM from the users.
> >>>That's exactly what I said above. First you have to add the 
> functionality you want to the JVM, then you need to make that 
> functionality available to the agent. Your users will still need 
> your customized VM.
> >>>
> >>>At present class JVMTI class redefinition is limited in ways 
> that don't meet your list of requirements:
> >>>
> >>>"The redefinition may change method bodies, the constant pool 
> and attributes. The redefinition must not add, remove or rename 
> fields or methods, change the signatures of methods, change 
> modifiers, or change inheritance."
> >>>
> >>>David