Michel CASABIANCA wrote: > Kevin Riff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Would it make sense to add an attribute to the JavaC task that > > allows you to enter the path to an arbitrary compiler? It could > > be implemented using Runtime.exec(..) similarly to how the Jikes > > compiler is done. > > This should be possible, but it would be *very* slow compared to > running this compiler in the same VM. VM boot is time consuming > (about 2 or 3 sec.) and can be greater than time to compile. > > For small projects you can run faster by disabling JIT because in > these situations boot time is greater than the amount of time > saved with JIT.
That would be true if the compiler was a Java application. But Jikes (and presumably other compilers) is implemented in native C code which makes it *much* faster than JavaC. When the "jikes" option is used, Ant uses Runtime.exec(..) to invoke the compiler as a separate process. All that would be needed is to create another compiler option that's similar to the existing Jikes code but without anything that's specific to Jikes.
