Re: Classpath / GCJ java.io Merge

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 04:19, Aaron M. Renn wrote:
> Hi.  I've been looking at the Classpath / GCJ merge status here:
> 
> http://gcc.gnu.org/java/libgcj-classpath-compare.html

BTW Tom, when are you going to enable the automatic updater of that
page? It is already a bit out of sync with reality again.

> For #2, it seems that the answer is to switch to NIO.  I hear that the
> Classpath version is not yet functional however.

Jesse Rosenstock <address@hidden> has been working on this. It
should be API complete (in libgcj at least) and he was looking at
converting the gnu.gcj.convert iconv support to it so String could use
java.nio.charset for getBytes() and such methods.

I recently looked at the char conversion code of libgcj and although it
is nicer then the Classpath one it isn't optimal. James Clark recently
found a bug in it that shows up when a converter cannot make progress
anymore because the output buffer was full and the input buffer was
empty. You need a way to signal both these conditions. java.nio.charset
gives you that support from the start. See thread starting:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/java-patches/2003-q1/msg00532.html

> For #1, I have no idea what has been decided regarding native code.
> Last I checked, we still had a JNI/CNI deadlock going on.

We have to go for the setup that libgcj uses (delegate actual file
access to the package local methods of FileDescriptor). Classpath has a
problem with the ownership of the file descriptor. See the description
of Jeroen Frijters here (and how I dropped the ball on the issue by
saying that I would look into it soon...):
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/classpath/2002-07/msg00012.html

Cheers,

Mark