Re: a bug in soot (coffi)

[Feng Qian <feng.qian@mail.mcgill.ca>]

From JVM Spec:

The constant field represented by the |field_info| structure is assigned 
the value referenced by its |ConstantValue| attribute as part of the 
initialization of the class or interface declaring the constant field 
(§2.17.4) 
<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/Concepts.doc.html#19075>. 
This occurs immediately prior to the invocation of the class or 
interface initialization method (§3.9) 
<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/Overview.doc.html#12174> 
of that class or interface.

Probably it is not as worse as you may think ;-) .

Cheers,
Feng


Etienne Gagnon wrote:

> Hi Feng,
>
> Feng Qian wrote:
>
> > ...
> > testconstA.java modified
> > public class testconstA {
> >  public static final z = 7;
> > }
> > The solution is to assign the value of ConstantValue attribute to a 
> > static field in <clinit> explicitly (create one if no <clinit> 
> > exists) before any other real code in original <clinit>...
>
>
> So, you are saying that you want to change such a class into:
>
> testconstA.java modified again
> public class testconstA {
>  public static final z;
>  static {
>   z = 7;
>  }
> }
>
> I would really prefer that the ConstantValue attribute be preserved
> instead of adding an assignment statement.  Execution of static blocks
> happen at a later time than initialization of fields with ConstantValue
> attributes, according to the JVM spec.  [In other words, constant fields
> are initialized with their value before <clinit>() is called].
>
> Etienne