Native Image Committer and Community Meeting 2022-10-20

[christianwimmer]

List of all past and upcoming meetings: #3933

New and Noteworthy

• Disallow Native Image API classes and image builder internals in the application: Sometimes projects falsely depend on svm.jar (or graal-sdk.jar) or transitively include svm classes in uber-jars. This also happens e.g. when a maven projects depends on svm.jar but does not specify it as a dependency of type provided.
  [GR-40187] Dectect invalid use of SVM specific classes on image class- or module-path. #5232

• AWT support: We are switching to dynamic linking of C libraries for all platforms (like it always was on Windows). Some PRs towards this goal:
  [GR-41748] Use version script to control symbol visibility on Linux. #5249

• Allow "parse once" also for images that include Truffle languages, i.e., never parse bytecode after the static analysis. This will, e.g., allow method inlining before static analysis also for images that include Truffle languages. Some PRs towards this goal:
  [GR-41298] Introduce ParseOnceJIT concept and flag. #5061
  [GR-41301] Introduce MultiMethod concept. #5212

• Fix unnecessary imprecision of the static analysis regarding instanceof and other type checks: This exposes tricky corner cases, reducing the reachability can expose bugs in the configuration of native images.
  [GR-41674] Class instanceOf and isAssignableFrom checks do need to make the checked type reachable. #5224

• Improve the traceability of the static analysis: More PRs to come in the near future.
  [GR-41279][GR-35744] Enhance reason backtrace. #5246

• Work for universal shadow heap and allowing to initialize all classes at image build time:
  [GR-39433] Allow instances of simulated classes in the image heap. #5174

• [GR-41577] Remove GuardedAnnotationAccess and DirectAnnotationAccess. #5176

• Monitoring / tools:
  [GR-41047] Use C++ symbol mangling on Linux to make tools happy #5172
  [GR-41196] Provide .debug.* sections that contain build options and properties used in the build of an image. #5254
  [GR-37463] JFR getStackTraceId implementation. JFR Tests. Code cleanup. #5117
  Add some JFR event tests #4932

Deep Dive

• Questions / discussions regarding recent OpenJDK announcements.

• We are working to improve the unsability of the native image tool (like error messages). What are the biggest pain points right now?

Possible deep dive topics for next meeting

• Upcoming improvements to reflection configuration: distinguish between "method not found" and "method not registered for reflection".

Please send suggestions in the GraalVM Slack channel

[galderz]

We are working to improve the unsability of the native image tool (like error messages). What are the biggest pain points right now?

I've just created #5267 as an example of misleading errors you can get when running native image with track object instantiation flag.