Re: [cp-patches] RFC: New JCL helper functions for RawData handling

[Guilhem Lavaux]

On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 21:26 +0100, Chris Burdess wrote:
> Tom Tromey wrote:
> > Guilhem> +      rawDataClass = (*env)->FindClass (env, 
> > "gnu/classpath/RawData64");
> >
> >>> At FOSDEM we talked about renaming these ... want to take it on?  :-)
> >
> > Guilhem> Could you be more specific ? A link to the discussion ? I may
> > Guilhem> take it on but I need to know what was decided. ;-)
> >
> > Maybe the discussion never got written down.  Or maybe I just made it
> > all up :-)
> >
> > libgcj had a class named RawData before Classpath, but with different
> > semantics.  libgcj's RawData is not a wrapper for a pointer but is
> > instead a pointer itself, and it is specially treated by the compiler
> > and the garbage collector.
> >
> > I've always thought it was confusing that Classpath had a class with
> > the same name but different semantics.
> 
> Yes; it was my fault, I introduced this as part of porting libxmlj to 
> 64-bit architectures - not that I have any experience in this at all 
> but it was the only thing I tried that worked. I did say at FOSDEM that 
> it was a bad name choice. If the libgcj way is better we should use 
> that instead since as I understand it it would save a layer of 
> indirection, but perhaps it needs VM-specific support to work? Failing 
> that, just renaming the class Pointer or PointerWrapper would also be 
> better than the current state of affairs.

Ok. Then I will make a set of patches to first use the new common JCL
interface. And then I will rename RawData* to Pointer*. Is it ok ?

Guilhem.

P.S.: I have just checked in the JCL patch.