Jikes RVM 2.3.4 is now available. You can download it from one of the following URLs:
ftp://www-126.ibm.com/pub/jikesrvm/2.3.4/jikesrvm-2.3.4.tar.gz (2951425 bytes, MD5 checksum: f85b7f840b3c1ebeffec0f14c1935e0b) ftp://www-126.ibm.com/pub/jikesrvm/2.3.4/jikesrvm-2.3.4.tar.bz2 (2330892 bytes, MD5 checksum: c1251f5bdfb456c6a09a074f5baaacfe) *Highlights of this release include: **We now run Eclipse 3.0 This requires that the Xalan XML parser be installed. **The port to PowerPC64 is virtually complete. There are a few fringe opt compiler bugs remaining, but functionality has advanced to the point where development and production images of Jikes RVM are passing almost all regression tests. **MMTk has been moved out of $RVM_ROOT/rvm/src/vm/memory managers to $RVM_ROOT/MMTk. It has also been reorganized to have the directory structure match its package structure and thus is "Eclipse-friendly." **Major revision of the object model. All objects (arrays and scalars) are now layed out in a "forwards" direction. This simplifies and enables many common GC techniques (scannable heap; card-marking) at the cost of a slight performance hit on AIX/PowerPC due to the need to make some null checks explicit. See VM_ObjectModel.java for more details. **XML parsing with Xalan Jikes RVM can now be configured so it always uses the Xalan XML parser. See the configuration file variable XALAN_J_DIR. **We have switched to GNU Classpath version 0.12. Versions 0.10 and 0.11 can still be used, if you set appropriate options in the configuration file, but we recommend Classpath 0.12. **CPU hogging fixed Jikes RVM used to busy-wait when it was idle, waiting for I/O or timeouts. It now sleeps properly, which is nice if you're trying to do something else on your workstation at the same time that you're using Jikes RVM. This closes long-standing defect # 2046. *Other notes: **The memory size options now all take sizes in bytes by default. (INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE) They used to use a mix of default units: Megabytes (Mebibytes), Kilobytes (Kibibytes), and "Log 2 of the frequency (in bytes)". They now all default to bytes; please update any scripts you have appropriately. This affects -Xmx, -Xms, and the -X:gc:* options. **The MMAP_COPY_ON_WRITE feature now works on PowerPC/Linux and PowerPC/OSX. (This feature was discussed in the 2.3.3 release notes.) **The AttachCurrentThread JNI function is now partly implemented; it now works in the common case where a thread is already attached to the VM. **RVM_BOOTCLASSPATH_APPEND is a new environment variable that Jikes RVM will recognize when booting. You can use it to add extensions to the VM. Set it as you would set the CLASSPATH environment variable. **Major re-implementation of AOS's feedback-directed inlining and the opt compiler's default inlining policy. Result is simpler code, lower overhead profiling, and more effective inlining decisions. *Bug Fixes: **The JNI AttachCurrentThread function now returns proper error status if it cannot complete properly. It used to (incorrectly) always return JNI_OK. **Class.getResourceAsStream() and Class.getResource() would fail with a NullPointerException when invoked on a Class object that was loaded by the Bootstrap Class Loader. **Defect #3601 is fixed -- java.lang.Thread no longer inherits from VM_Thread. **Stack trace printing for trouble in the boot thread is fixed; it no longer inappropriately elides frames. *Internal Changes **The VM_Magic classes have been moved to the org.vmmagic namespace, and rationalized. Further work on refactoring magic usage (mainly in Jikes RVM as opposed to MMTk) is ongoing. _______________________________________________ Classpath mailing list Classpath@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/classpath