Re: Updates to GNU Classpath port of JRVM

[John Leuner]

> > I've updated the files necessary to get a working bootimage out of JRVM
> > 2.1.1 (latest CVS) and GNU Classpath (latest CVS) at: 
> > 
> > http://people.debian.org/~jewel//jikes/jikesport/2.1.1CVS/port.html
> 
> John, what prevents us from incorporating the necessary changes into
> Classpath CVS?  I'll assume we're talking a compilation/packaging
> issue until I get more time to look at this.

There are two parts:

1. The VM-specific files. Ideally these would go into the JRVM CVS tree,
but I fear there are licensing issues.

2. The modified Classpath files. I believe that to include these we
would have to do some kind of preprocessing of the .java files. 

The JRVM people have written their own preprocessor to handle this task
(see rvm/src/tools/preprocessor/preprocessModifiedFiles.C). I think we
could use the same tool.

It understands these directives:

// The following preprocessor directives are recognized in source files:
//    //-#if    <name>
//    //-#elif  <name>
//    //-#else  <optional-comment>
//    //-#endif <optional-comment>

I suppose it's also possible to use cpp, I don't know if it would choke
on anything in the .java source.
 
I don't think there are any other obstacles to incorporating this into
CVS.

The JRVM code base is still under development and although there is a
'library' interface between Classpath and JRVM, there might still be
maintenance work to be done to keep the two CVS trees in sync. 

> > I'm also looking for someone to host an 'autobuilder' and perhaps run
> > nightly regression tests (starting with mauve and maybe others).
> 
> I'm looking to do the same for Kissme, maybe others if they work with
> Classpath CVS.  I'll let the list know when I've done Kissme and
> getting the other one in there shouldn't be difficult.

Great. Do you have a machine where you can have this run every night and
produce binaries?

For JRVM an autobuilder would have to be a beefy machine. Building the
basebase image (which is what I mostly do with the port) needs a machine
with 512MB ram and will take roughly 5 minutes of CPU time. 

Building the image with the optimising compiler, (which we'll do at a
later stage), will take a substantial amount of time and lots of RAM.

John Leuner

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