Using constant selectors for method identification

Details Using constant selectors for method identification Using constant selectors for method identification

1996-05-20

1999-03-30

Hafiz, Tariq R.

395703, 395680, G06F 945

Patent

active

058899952

ABSTRACT:
A process for generating method invocation instructions for a source-code program expressed in an object-oriented computer programming language is described. The process can be implemented as a compiler or, alternatively, as a combination of one or more utility routines and a compiler. The process first generates a global method selector list (hereinafter referred to as the dispatch table) comprising all of a target program's known method selector strings. Next, a unique constant value identifier is assigned to each unique method selector. Finally, as each source-code method call instruction is parsed during compilation, the compiler uses the method selector's identifier value to generate an instruction to directly load a unique constant value method identifier. In one embodiment, generation of the dispatch table is done a priori to the source-code program's compilation by a utility routine. In an alternative embodiment, the compiler performs these operations directly. Benefits of the compiler include, but are not limited to, (1) reduced executable code size (2) reduced program initialization time and (3) increased program execution speed.

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