RE: Cleanly defining the VM interface

[Jeroen Frijters]

David Holmes wrote:
> Just some feedback from someone trying to integrate Classpath 
> into a VM.
[...]
> Unfortunately how the choice of making a class part of the 
> core that the VM must implement, versus writing it in terms 
> of VMxxx classes, versus declaring it to have native methods, 
> is made is not clear. I'm assuming that the general intent is 
> to do something like this:
> 
> - if it can be implemented in Java source then code it in Java source
> - it it can be implemented in standard JNI calls then make it native
> - if it's really VM specific then make it a call to VMxxx.foo
> 
> right?

I think we're in a transitional phase, the idea is to move all native
methods into VMxxx classes.

> From our perspective there should be no native methods in the 
> main Classpath classes but only calls to VMxxx methods, which 
> then may be native.
> This additional indirection would make it easier to adapt 
> classpath to VM's without JNI. I realize this may conflict 
> with the general view.

I definitely agree and I think (or is that hope ;-)) that this is also
the consensus.

Regards,
Jeroen