Re: VMThrowable.java

[Brian Jones]

Archie Cobbs <address@hidden> writes:

> I can't imagine a lot of VM's can be satisfied with the default
> VMThrowable.java because that means you'll never be able to see
> exception stack traces (right?).
> 
> Finally, it still seems to me like VMThrowable is "different" from
> the other VM reference classes. The other classes try to define a
> framework for doing something, and then leave the VM part of the
> job to native methods. VMThrowable instead defines a framework for
> doing something and then provides an implementation that simply
> does nothing.
> 
> As always, I could be completely misunderstanding things..

I think you are correct that most others leave the heavy lifting to a
native method and here it is a noop java method.  In reality, you will
want to copy the reference classes and change them to native or java
as suits your JVM.  Jikes RVM for instance provides a Java API for all
needed native functionality so they don't really want any native
methods and hence we sort of need to move anything that has a native
method into the vm/reference tree.

But there is a different between the stuff you can change and the
stuff you absolutely must change and this is one of those areas where
I think a good JVM Integration Guide would help.  As you're going
through this now Archie it would be of tremendous help if you could
take a stab at updating the current documentation if needed.

Brian
-- 
Brian Jones <address@hidden>