Written by the inventors of the technology, The Java® Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 7 Edition, is the definitive technical reference for the Java Virtual Machine.

 

The book provides complete, accurate, and detailed coverage of the Java Virtual Machine. It fully describes the invokedynamic instruction and method handle mechanism added in Java SE 7, and gives the formal Prolog specification of the type-checking verifier introduced in Java SE 6. The book also includes the class file extensions for generics and annotations defined in Java SE 5.0, and aligns the instruction set and initialization rules with the Java Memory Model.

 

Gain an in-depth understanding of the Java SE 7 JVM spec: sophisticated technical knowledge for implementing Java SE 7 bytecode interpreters or Java compilers, and optimizing Java program performance and efficiency. Authored by original members of the team that created the Java Virtual Machine at Sun, and fully updated by Oracle Java SE 7 spec lead Alex Buckley, The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 7 Edition offers an exceptionally thorough look at the Java platform's inner workings. Developers will find in-depth discussions of the JVM instruction set, with detailed examples showing how to compile Java code to it. Buckley and his colleagues illuminate the vital topic of Java virtual machine threads and their interaction with memory; and thoroughly discuss how interactions amongst program elements such as objects, variables, data types, arrays, exceptions and threads impact compile and run time. The authors explain the JVM's binary .class format, showing how Java interpreters should verify .class files' validity and trustworthiness, and carry out loading and linking operations on the objects they define. Part II offers a comprehensive reference to all Java opcodes: their purposes, formats, accepted operands, and the exceptions they can throw during compilation and execution.