Java Runtime constant pool reference variable in stack frame

Question

According to the following link the java stack frame contains local variables, operand stack and the current class constant pool reference. http://blog.jamesdbloom.com/JVMInternals.html

Also From Oracle "Structure of JVM" Section 2.6.3. "Dynamic Linking - Each frame (§2.6) contains a reference to the run-time constant pool (§2.5.5) for the type of the current method to support dynamic linking of the method code."

I have also read that the object in the heap also has a pointer/reference to the class data. https://www.artima.com/insidejvm/ed2/jvm6.html

The stack frame will contain the "current class constant pool reference" and also it will have the reference to the object in heap which in turn will also point to the class data. Is this not redundant??

For example.

public class Honda {
  public void run() {
    System.out.println("honda is running");
  } 
  public static void main(String[] args) {
  Honda h = new Honda();
  h.run(); //output honda is running
  }
}

When h.run() is going to be executed, jvm will create a new stack frame and push h on the stack frame. h will point to the object in heap which in turn will have a pointer to class data of Honda. The stack frame will also have current class constant reference. Is this correct? If not please shed some light on this.

Answer 1

Is this not redundant??

Maybe it is redundant for instance methods and constructors.

It isn't redundant for static methods or class initialization pseudo-methods.

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It is also possible that the (supposedly) redundant reference gets optimized away by the JIT compiler. (Or maybe it isn't optimized away ... because they have concluded that the redundancy leads to faster execution on average .) Or maybe the actual implementation of the JVM ¹ is just different.

Bear in mind that the JVM spec is describing an idealized stack frame. The actual implementation may be different ... provided that it behaves the way that the spec says it should.

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On @EJP's point on normativeness, the only normative references for Java are the JLS and JVM specifications, and the Javadoc for the class library. You can also consult the source code of the JVM itself. The specifications say what should happen, and the code (in a sense) says what does happen. An article you might find in a published paper or a web article is not normative, and may well be incorrect or out of date.

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^{1 - The actual implementation may vary from one version to the next, or between vendors. Furthermore, I have heard of a JVM implementation where a bytecode rewriter transformed from standard bytecodes to another abstract machine language at class load time. It wasn't a great idea from a performance perspective ... but it was certainly within the spirit of the JVM spec.}

Answer 2

The stack frame will contain the "current class constant pool reference" and also it will have the reference to the object in heap which in turn will also point to the class data. Is this not redundant??

You missed the precondition of that statement, or you misquoted it, or it was just plainly wrong where you saw it.

The "reference to the object in heap" is only added for non-static method, and it refers to the hidden this parameter.

As it says in section " Local Variables Array ":

The array of local variables contains all the variables used during the execution of the method, including a reference to this , all method parameters and other locally defined variables. For class methods (ie static methods) the method parameters start from zero, however, for instance method the zero slot is reserved for this .

So, for static methods, there is no redundancy.

Could the constant pool reference be eliminated when this is present? Yes, but then there would need to be a different way to locate the constant pool reference, requiring different bytecode instructions, so that would be a different kind of redundancy.

Always having the constant pool reference available in a well-known location in the stack frame, simplifies the bytecode logic.

Answer 3

There are two points here. First, there are static methods which are invoked without a this reference. Second, the actual class of an object instance is not necessarily the declaring class of the method whose code we are actually executing. The purpose of the constant pool reference is to enable resolving of symbolic references and loading of constants referenced by the code. In both cases, we need the constant pool of the class containing the currently executed code, even if the method might be inherited by the actual class of the this reference (in case of a private method invoked by another inherited method, we have a method invoked with a this instance of a class which formally does not even inherit the method).

It might even be the case that the currently executed code is contained in an interface, so we never have instances of it, but still a class file with a constant pool which must be available when executing the code. This does not only apply to Java 8 and newer, which allow static and default methods in interfaces; earlier versions also might need to execute the <clinit> method of an interface to initialize its static fields.

By the way, even if an instance method is invoked with an object reference associated with this in its first local variable, there is no requirement for the bytecode instructions to keep it there. If not needed, it might get overwritten by an arbitrary value, reusing the variable slot for other purposes. This does not preclude that subsequent instructions need the constant pool, which, as said, does not need to belong to the actual class of this anyway.

Of course, that pool reference is a logical construct anyway. Implementations may transform the code to use a shared pool or not to need a pool at all when all references have been resolved already, etc. After inlining, code may not even have a dedicated stack frame anymore.