RE: Classpath build process and VM-specific issues

[Andrew Haley]

Jeroen Frijters writes:
 > 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.

Yeah, but that's a special case.  In general, on most VMs, you can't
convert a RawData to an Object.

 > Etienne Gagnon wrote:
 > > IMO, the cleanest approach is really the use of a byte array. 
 > 
 > But it is inefficient and hard to optimize.

Right.  The choice of a byte array is the worst of all possible
worlds.  Well okay, it is at least portable, but it has no other
virtues.

Andrew.