VM* classes (Was: Package and Modifier)

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 10:06:02AM -0600, Tom Tromey wrote:
> 
> I'd like to see the VM* classes moved out of java.lang and into some
> other package, say gnu.classpath.  In libgcj we've adopted a policy of
> only putting public classes into java.lang -- implementation classes
> go somewhere else.  This seems like a good policy to me.

The reason you want the (package local) VM* classes in java.lang is because
you only want the core java.lang classes to be able to call the VM interface
methods. Moving the VM* classes to another package would mean that the
classes and methods have to be made public so they could be used from
the java.lang package. But that also means that other classes can call
those methods and manipulate the VM directly.

We have to make sure that the VM* classes define a really minimal interface
to the VM but, we cannot make them public and move them to another package
without giving arbitrary classes access to things they should not use
directly. And the classes are not that big, they only define a couple of
native methods.

Cheers,

Mark
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