[Jikesrvm-researchers] Jikes RVM 2.4.5 now available

[David P G. <gr...@us...>]

Jikes RVM version 2.4.5 is now available for download from sourceforge.net 
at  
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/jikesrvm/jikesrvm-2.4.5.tar.gz?download 
 

*Jikes RVM 2.4.5 Release Notes (released August 14, 2006)
** Highlights
*** The recommended version of GNU classpath for Jikes RVM 2.4.5 is 0.92.
    GNU classpath version 0.91 will work, but Jikes RVM 2.4.5 will not
    compile against versions of GNU classpath before 0.91.

*** Classpath AWT and Swing tests now run with the Jikes RVM. We have 
changed
    from using the portable native sync code, and addressed issues with 
M-to-N
    threading.

*** We can now load and run Java 1.5.0 Java class files. Support includes
    building the Jikes RVM using a 1.5.0 javac compiler and running the
    SPEC JBB 2005 benchmark. Includes reflection support for generic 
types.

*** MMTk changes & refactors.  A mark-compact collector has been added.  A
    number of key bugs have been fixed, both in the vm (eg baseline GC
    maps), and in MMTk proper.  Completed a major refactoring of
    "locals" to explicitly separate per-mutator and per-collector
    contexts.  This generalizes away from assumptions of the current
    Jikes RVM threading model.

*** We can now load runtime and non-runtime annotations. Runtime support
    is limited as Classpath is missing the base annotation definitions.
    A work around is to switch on non-runtime annotation loading in the 
RVM.
    NOTE: This requires classpath 0.91 or better.

*** Added ability to perform boot image root scanning, and thus avoid
    tracing through the boot image at each full heap GC. As a result,
    we've added a third region to the bootimage; all config files must
    now define BOOTIMAGE_RMAP_ADDRESS in addition to 
BOOTIMAGE_DATA_ADDRESS
    and BOOTIMAGE_CODE_ADDRESS.

** Bug fixes
1442437: to match Sun behavior, java.lang.Class.newInstance now passes
         through exceptions instead of wrapping in 
InstantiationExceptions.
         NOTE: This requires classpath 0.90 or better.

1505824: Exit cleanly when the jar file given to -jar doesn't contain a 
valid ma
nifest

1494784: Intermittent build failure on IA32 due to imprecise estimation of
         instruction size in code used for short forward jump 
optimization.

1147554: MarkSweep double-mark: corrects performance problem in MMTk 
MarkSweep
         code which was marking both a bit in the object and a side mark 
map.

** Other Notes
*** IA32 BURS improvement for special case of COND_MOV contibuted by
    Garrett Kolpin
*** Improvements to OPT_Simplifier to catch a number of additional cases.