[foreign-abi] RFR: Rename SystemABI to ForeignLinker, and move C support to a separate class.

[Jorn Vernee]

On Mon, 18 May 2020 12:00:29 GMT, Maurizio Cimadamore <mcimadamore at openjdk.org> wrote:

>>> if we have already C somewhere in the class name, there's a question as to whether constants should drop their C-ness
>>> (e.g. `C.C_BOOL` looks odd).
>>> Thought about this; C.C_BOOL and C.Win64.C_BOOL become C.BOOL,
>>> C.Win64.BOOL. That seems fine. Then there's also static import variants;
>>> C_BOOL, Win64.C_BOOL that go to BOOL and Win64.BOOL. I feel like for the
>>> C_BOOL -> BOOL case some information is lost, and that's the most common
>>> case we have it seems. But, maybe it's clear enough from the context
>>> that a C layout is being used? I think the main risk is confusing with
>>> Java carrier types or layouts (since the names are similar. Feeling a
>>> little on the fence about it, so I held off on the first revision.
>> 
>> I was about to mention when I wrote my message that, one counter argument to my proposal was that, if the code used a
>> static import at the top (and you have few examples in your patch) then the code would just use `BOOL`, which might
>> also be a bit thin.  In the end, perhaps this is tied with the support class called just `C`; e.g. `C.C_Bool` looks a
>> tad weird, `C<something>.C_BOOL` (e.g. `CSupport.C_BOOL`) perhaps not as much.
>
>> the name `C` seems thin. It doesn't describe very well what the class is for. Maybe `CSupport` or something like that
>> might be more expressive
>> Yeah, that's a good suggestion. Will apply.
> 
> The *Support* suffix is something that we use sometimes in the JDK (e.g. `StreamSupport`). If you think that `C` in
> `CSupport` is not much, I thought we could tweak to `ClangSupport` or something like that but that will likely lead to
> confusion (as it parses as `clang`).

> The _Support_ suffix is something that we use sometimes in the JDK (e.g. `StreamSupport`). If you think that `C` in
> `CSupport` is not much, I thought we could tweak to `ClangSupport` or something like that but that will likely lead to
> confusion (as it parses as `clang`).

Uh, yeah, I just had to do a double take on that ��

I think `CSupport` looks fine as a name though.

-------------

PR: https://git.openjdk.java.net/panama-foreign/pull/174