Class file format version bump <was> Re: is ClassLoader.loadClass() supposed to work on module-info classes?

[Paul Sandoz]

> On 5 Dec 2015, at 00:09, Alex Buckley <alex.buckley at Oracle.COM> wrote:
> 
> On 12/4/2015 11:58 AM, Peter Levart wrote:
>> I know about those options. What I was wanting to know is whether the
>> class file format will change and for what features.
> 
> It's possible that VarHandles will justify a bump to 53.0 because of new semantics for invokevirtual (see JEP 193). Paging Paul Sandoz, how is that JVM Spec update coming along? :-)
> 

(I nearly missed this paging :-) )

Here is the current specdiff (this is updated regularly):

  http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~psandoz/jdk9/varhandles/specdiff/overview-summary.html <http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~psandoz/jdk9/varhandles/specdiff/overview-summary.html>

At the end of the class summary of VarHandle there are notes on possible updates to the specifications:

  http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~psandoz/jdk9/varhandles/specdiff/java/lang/invoke/VarHandle.html <http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~psandoz/jdk9/varhandles/specdiff/java/lang/invoke/VarHandle.html>

I will contact you off list about how best to proceed.

Paul.

> (Yes, changing instruction semantics causes a bump. Changing ldc in SE 5.0 to support class constants bumped 48.0 to 49.0, thus losing the ability to compile code with generics on JDK 5 and run the class files on 1.4.)
> 
> Alex