Static fields and specialization

[Remi Forax]

On 01/12/2015 01:51 PM, Palo Marton wrote:
> One possible solution how to support specialized static fields is to use
> same approach as with generic methods. E.g. with this syntax:
>
> private static final <any T> Optional<T> EMPTY = new Optional<T>();
>
> This will compile initializing expression to generic static method:
>
> private static <any T> Optional<T> EMPTY$init() {
>     return  new Optional<T>();
> }
>
> And all get/set access to EMPTY<T> will use invocedynamic. Bootsrap will
> call Optional.<T>EMPTY$init() to get initial value, store it in some holder
> object on heap (eg Variable<T>) and returm get/set MethodHandle for that
> field.

You don't need any holder, there is a special MethodHandle
named MethodHandles.constant() which is able to always
return the same value, the JIT will consider the value as a true constant.

Rémi

>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Palo Marton <palo.marton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, but you can not create specialized implementations for user defined
>> value types. So these will be left with much slower implementation.
>> Singleton implementation compiles to just 0-1 instructions and
>> implementation that allocates new instance will be much slower.
>>
>> And other problem - such approach is against goals of specialization: You
>> will have to write separate code for each primitive type.
>>
>> Pavol Marton, aSc
>> www.asctimetables.com
>>
>>
>>> In the case of Optional.empty() and others like Collections.emptyList()
>>> it's a method that you're invoking. There is no need to implement static
>>> field specialization. You can just get your specialized implementations to
>>> return different singleton instances. Ok - so this means you now have 9
>>> empty instances rather than 1 but that's basically nothing in terms of
>>> memory consumption. In the case of Optional you already have manual
>>> specialisation for 3 primitive cases in the form of Optionalint and friends
>>> so its really 9 rather than 4 anyway.
>>>
>>> regards,
>>>
>>>    Richard Warburton
>>>
>>>    http://insightfullogic.com
>>>    @RichardWarburto <http://twitter.com/richardwarburto>
>>>
>>