Spec update for Class#getDeclaredMethods() (original) (raw)

Dalibor Topic Dalibor.Topic at Sun.COM
Thu Jul 16 13:52:07 UTC 2009

Rémi Forax wrote:

Florian Weimer a écrit :

I suggest to replace:

| The elements [methods] in the array returned are not sorted and are | not in any particular order. with: | If the class is a compiled Java class, the elements in the array are | sorted according to the order of declaration in the source code. | Otherwise, the elements are not in any particular order. There is a growing amount of code which relies on predictable method order, so backwards compatibility concerns implicitly dictate the ordering. The proposed change makes this explicit. The other reflection methods should be updated in a similar fashion This sentences was conscientiously added between 1.1 and 1.2 and I know a small VM that returns the method using the vtable ordering for getMethod. Your suggestion implies that potentially all VM implementors should change some parts of their VM data structures. Doesn't seem realistic, isn't it.

Unless the order of method declarations in the source code must be preserved in the class file (I don't think that's the case), I don't think it would really be possible for JVM implementors to do that due to the lack of the ability to determine at runtime from the class file alone the 'original' permutation of the elements that corresponds to the one in the source code in general.

cheers, dalibor topic

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