Method call acceleration in embedded Java virtual machines

Abstract

Object oriented languages, in particular Java, use a frequent dynamic dispatch mechanism to search for the definition of an invoked method. A method could be defined in more than one class. The search for the appropriate method definition is performed dynamically. This induces an execution time overhead that is significant. Many static and dynamic techniques have been proposed to minimize the cost of such an overhead. Generally, these techniques are not adequate for embedded Java platforms with resource constraints because they require a relatively big memory space. The paper proposes a dynamic, flexible and efficient technique for accelerating method calls mechanism in embedded systems. This acceleration technique spans over 3 aspects of the method call: (1) lookup, (2) caching, and (3) synchronized methods. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.