Mike --
Thats a lot of metadata. Sounds like maybe the metadata is primary
and the bytecode is secondary, in which case perhaps what you
really want is a (metadata) tree decorated with bytecode rather than
a (bytecode) array decorated with metadata.
Of course, the most natural candidate for the metadata would be the
annotated (file & line, etc.) parse tree, or some approximation to it
after compilation-related transformations.
I can imagine a process that loads the tree, and linearizes the
bytecode with the metadata consisting of backpointers to nodes of
the tree, either in band as escaped noop-equivalent bytecode or
out of band in an offset-pointer table.
With a suitable amount of forethought on the tree representation,
you should be able to have good flexibility while still having enough
standardization on how tree-emitting compilers represent typical
debug-related metadata (file, line, etc.) that debuggers and other
tools could be generic.
Regards,
-- Gregor
James Michael DuPont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
02/04/2003 04:06 AM
To: James Mastros <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Leopold
Toetsch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc: Nicholas Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Brent Dax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dan
Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], James Michael DuPont
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dave Beckett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
introspectors <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Juergen
Boemmels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dave Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Bytecode metadata
Dear All,
I just wanted to ask about a conclusion on the bytecode metadata.
Here are the things I would like to know about a given bytecode :
what line (maybe column) it comes from
Possible comments about it.
If it is a method call, what is the method name,signature,locatoin
If it is a variable or constant, what is the variable name, type, size
If it is a expression , what is the type of it, the size
For a given type, the name, size would be great to store.
Is it going to be possible to store this data in the meta-data,
it does not have to be all there at once, but will the framework handle
it?
Hopefully you have answered this already, and you can just say, rtfm.
Thanks for you patience, i am a bit slow today.
mike
=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/
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