RE: Classpath build process and VM-specific issues

[Jeroen Frijters]

Andrew Haley wrote:
> Michael Koch writes:
>  > > To be honest I think we should not have RawData in Classpath.
> 
> The trouble with RawData (as it is used in gcj) is that it breaks the
> Java type system.  Its bizarre semantics mean that you have something
> that looks like an object reference but you can't use it as one.  You
> can't convert it to an instance of Object, for example.

Not necessarily. On my (admittedly weird) VM, RawData is a direct
pointer, but it can also be treated as an object, this is not
particularly efficient way of using it (it gets boxed), but it does
work.

Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> IMO, the cleanest approach is really the use of a byte array. 

But it is inefficient and hard to optimize. I don't see why RawData
doesn't give you the same capabilities as a byte array (as an extreme
example, you can replace Classpath's RawData with your own version that
wraps a byte array).

Regards,
Jeroen