RE: [Ikvm-developers] RE: ikvm performance

[Jeroen F. <je...@su...>]

After fixing a bug in compiler.cs (in CastInterfaceArgs) having to do
with unloadable classes, I was able to convert bcel and ant. During the
conversion you get many warnings (missing classes and illegal access
errors), but it does convert the code correctly.

Here is what I did:

ikvmc -out:bcel-5.1.dll -target:library
-reference:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll bcel-5.1\bcel-5.1.jar=20
ikvmc -out:apache-ant-1.5.4.dll -target:library
-reference:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll -reference:bcel-5.1.dll
apache-ant-1.5.4\lib\*.jar

Call me cynical, but I'm skeptical that this is (ever) going to work. I
think you underestimate how much dynamic class loading is part of large
Java applications/frameworks. Dynamic class loading doesn't mix well
with the .NET assembly model.

Regards,
Jeroen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Pierce [mailto:jp...@ny...]=20
> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:59
> To: Jeroen Frijters; 'ikvm list'
> Subject: RE: [Ikvm-developers] RE: ikvm performance
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> Jeroen,
>=20
> Jonathan Pierce wrote:
> > 1. I noticed that when I run eclipse with ikvm, it starts up=20
> > very slowly.
> > Obviously, it would be much faster if the jar files in the=20
> > classpath were precompiled with ikvmc. I also noticed that
> > ikvm starter.cs just uses a URLClassLoader to dynamically
> > load the types from the jars in the classpath.
>=20
> >>A better (and easier) approach, is to manually
> >>convert an application using ikvmc, but this may require=20
> source changes
> >>(to Eclipse).=20
> I know it isn't easy to do, but it would be better if caching=20
> of converted
> code was dynamically available to all applications instead of=20
> requiring all
> users to manually convert each jar file to get the=20
> performance improvement.
> This is also difficult to do sometimes because of the=20
> dependencies and the
> fact that many jar files won't compile because of missing classes and
> methods. You'll see what I mean when you try to convert the=20
> ant files below.
>=20
> What do you think about adding support for the -usestubrefs=20
> option to ikvmc
> like jbimp has to defer missing class errors until runtime?
>=20
> >>I think this is already supposed to work. Do you have a=20
> repro or a link
> >>to the ant jar that you're trying to compile?
>=20
> It's the middle of the night for me, but I thought I'd give=20
> you something
> else to work on. Some of the problems are related to swing methods in
> jdialog not being declared public, others related to missing=20
> classes that
> are not in classpath but are in the jdk1.2 runtime. I'll be=20
> very impressed
> if you get the ant.jar 1.5.4 dist to compile with ikvmc.
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> The ant distribution is from the apache site, but I also had similar
> problems converting some of the jar files included in the=20
> eclipse dist.
> Converting the ant distribution will be a smaller task so it=20
> is better to
> get that working first before attempting to get ikvmc to work with the
> eclipse jars.
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> The ant and bcel links, and any other apache libs you may=20
> need are on the
> apache site:
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> Here's the one for Ant 1.5.4:
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> Src: http://apache.secsup.org/dist/ant/source/apache-ant-1.5.4-src.zip
> Binary:=20
> http://apache.webmeta.com/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.5.4-bin.zip
>=20
> And here is the BCEL code that it seems to use:
> Binary:
> http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-bcel/release/v5.1/bce
> l-5.1.zip
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> Source:
> http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-bcel/release/v5.1/bce
> l-5.1-src.zip
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> I tried the following after also downloading bcel, but didn't=20
> get very far:
> cd "C:\apache-ant-1.5.4\dist\lib\"
> ikvmc ../../lib/xml-apis.jar -out:xml-apis.dll -target:library
> -reference:c:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll
> ikvmc ../../lib/xercesImpl.jar -out:xercesImpl.dll -target:library
> -reference:c:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll -reference:xml-apis.dll
> ikvmc ../../lib/bcel-5.1.jar -out:bcel-5.1.dll -target:library
> -reference:c:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll
> ikvmc ant.jar optional.jar -out:ant.dll -target:library
> -reference:c:\ikvm\bin\classpath.dll -reference:xml-apis.dll
> -reference:xercesImpl.dll -reference:bcel-5.1.dll
>=20
> Good Luck...
>=20
> Jonathan
>=20
>=20
>=20