RFR: JDK-8328137: PreserveAllAnnotations can cause failure of class retransformation

[Serguei Spitsyn]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2024 22:12:49 GMT, Alex Menkov <amenkov at openjdk.org> wrote:

> Correct solution would be to store additional information about RuntimeInvisibleAnnotations and restore them exactly as they were in the original class (this should be done for all annotations: RuntimeInvisibleAnnotations/RuntimeInvisibleTypeAnnotations for class, fields and records, RuntimeInvisibleAnnotations/RuntimeInvisibleTypeAnnotations/RuntimeInvisibleParameterAnnotations for methods; need to ensure the information is correctly updated during class redefinition & retransformation).
> 
> I think it doesn't make sense to add all the complexity for almost no value (I doubt anyone uses PreserveAllAnnotations, the flag looks like experimental, we don't have any tests for it).

This solution looks okay in general but still is a little bit confusing. It feels like saving just one bit would not add much complexity but would even simplify the implementation as it will become straight-forward. At least, there would be no need in this additional function with the `fallback_attr_name` parameter.

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

PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/18540#issuecomment-2026785793