Deep copying objects in a collocated environment

• US 8,667,507 B2
• Filed: 03/21/2012
• Issued: 03/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kalagananam, Aruna A., Inglis, Derek B., Sundaresan, Vijay
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, VAN H
• Application Number:
  US13/425,844
• Publication Number:
  US 20120192206A1
• Time in Patent Office: 713 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 719/316
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45504 Abstract machines for programme code execution, e.g. Java virtual machine [JVM], interpreters, emulators
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services

Abstract

Systems and methods of passing arguments between client and server contexts may provide for detecting an in-process call between a client and a server, wherein the client and the server share a common virtual machine instance. An object copy from a source object of the in-process call to a destination object can be conducted based on an internal class structure of the virtual machine instance. The object copy procedure may be repeated for a plurality of source objects of the in-process call.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting, by a computer, an in-process call between a client and a server, wherein the client and the server share a common virtual machine instance, and wherein the in-process call includes a source object;

determining an internal class structure of the common virtual machine instance based on an object type of the source object;

identifying field offset data in the internal class structure;

conducting a field copy from the source object to a destination object based on the field offset data, wherein the source object corresponds to a first class loader and the destination object corresponds to a second class loader;

repeating the field copy for a plurality of fields in the source object to complete an object copy of the source object; and

repeating the object copy for a plurality of source objects in the in-process call.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

determining a first field offset for a field in the source object;

calculating a second field offset for the field in the destination object based on the field offset data; and

establishing an association between the first field offset and the second field offset.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein conducting the field copy includes:

conducting a recursive deep copy from a field in the source object to the destination object if the field includes an object reference, wherein conducting the deep copy includes at least one of using a preexisting copy of the object reference and calling a Java-based helper function; and

conducting a copy from a value of a field in the source object to the destination object if the field includes a primitive.

4. The method of claim 1, further including:

determining that the object type of the source object includes a system collection object;

defining the destination object as a destination system collection object;

conducting a recursive deep copy from non-custom marshalled fields in the source object to the destination system collection object;

iterating through elements of the source object; and

conducting a recursive deep copy from each element of the source object to the destination system collection object.

5. The method of claim 1, further including:

identifying at least one Java™

native interface (JNI) method in computer usable code at a compile time;

changing the JNI method to a compile time constant; and

using the compile time constant to identify the field offset data and conduct the field copy.

6. A method comprising:

detecting, by a computer, an in-process call between a client and a server, wherein the client and the server share a common virtual machine instance;

identifying field offset data in an internal class structure of the common virtual machine instance;

conducting a field copy from the source object to the destination object based on the field offset data;

conducting an object copy from a source object of the in-process call to a destination object based on the internal class structure of the common virtual machine instance; and

repeating the object copy for a plurality of source objects of the in-process call.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein conducting the object copy includes:

determining the internal class structure based on an object type of the source object;

and

repeating the field copy for a plurality of fields in the source object.

8. The method of claim 7, further including:

determining a first field offset for a field in the source object;

calculating a second field offset for the field in the destination object based on the field offset data; and

establishing an association between the first field offset and the second field offset.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein conducting the field copy includes:

conducting a recursive deep copy from a field in the source object to the destination object if the field includes an object reference; and

conducting a copy from a value of a field in the source object to the destination object if the field includes a primitive.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein conducting the recursive deep copy includes at least one of using a preexisting copy of the object reference and calling a Java-based helper function.

11. The method of claim 7, further including:

identifying at least one Java™

native interface (JNI) method in computer usable code at a compile time;

changing the JNI method to a compile time constant; and

using the compile time constant to identify the field offset data and conduct the field copy.

12. The method of claim 6, further including:

determining that an object type of the source object includes a system collection object;

defining the destination object as a destination system collection object;

conducting a recursive deep copy from non-custom marshalled fields in the source object to the destination system collection object;

iterating through elements of the source object; and

conducting a recursive deep copy from each element of the source object to the destination system collection object.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein source object corresponds to a first class loader and the destination object corresponds to a second class loader.