The biggest change in this commit is to split the system classloader
into two: one for boot classes (e.g. java.lang.*) and another for
application classes. This is necessary to make OpenJDK's security
checks happy.
The rest of the changes include bugfixes and additional JVM method
implementations in classpath-openjdk.cpp.
Whereas the GNU Classpath port used the strategy of patching Classpath
with core classes from Avian so as to minimize changes to the VM, this
port uses the opposite strategy: abstract and isolate
classpath-specific features in the VM similar to how we abstract away
platform-specific features in system.h. This allows us to use an
unmodified copy of OpenJDK's class library, including its core classes
and augmented by a few VM-specific classes in the "avian" package.
Implementing Thread.getStackTrace is tricky. A thread may interrupt
another thread at any time to grab a stack trace, including while the
latter is executing Java code, JNI code, helper thunks, VM code, or
while transitioning between any of these.
To create a stack trace we use several context fields associated with
the target thread, including snapshots of the instruction pointer,
stack pointer, and frame pointer. These fields must be current,
accurate, and consistent with each other in order to get a reliable
trace. Otherwise, we risk crashing the VM by trying to walk garbage
stack frames or by misinterpreting the size and/or content of
legitimate frames.
This commit addresses sensitive transition points such as entering the
helper thunks which bridge the transitions from Java to native code
(where we must save the stack and frame registers for use from native
code) and stack unwinding (where we must atomically update the thread
context fields to indicate which frame we are unwinding to). When
grabbing a trace for another thread, we determine what kind of code we
caught the thread executing in and use that information to choose the
thread context values with which to begin the trace. See
MyProcessor::getStackTrace::Visitor::visit for details.
In order to atomically update the thread context fields, we do the
following:
1. Create a temporary "transition" object to serve as a staging area
and populate it with the new field values.
2. Update a transition pointer in the thread object to point to the
object created above. As long as this pointer is non-null,
interrupting threads will use the context values in the staging
object instead of those in the thread object.
3. Update the fields in the thread object.
4. Clear the transition pointer in the thread object.
We use a memory barrier between each of these steps to ensure they are
made visible to other threads in program order. See
MyThread::doTransition for details.
