Applicability of method specialization techniques to Java

Method specialization is an optimization used to eliminate virtual call sites and open up opportunities for other compiler optimizations. Existing method specialization techniques do not explicitly handle dynamic class-loading or are suitable for a dynamic compilation environment. This thesis examines previous method specialization techniques, and illustrates the transformations with a running example. These techniques are also reviewed to determine the applicability of each method for use in a dynamic compilation environment that support dynamic class-loading (such as Java). Additionally a new method specialization framework is given that is designed for a dynamic compilation environment and handles dynamic class-loading. Aspects that need to be examined when making method specialization decisions for a dynamic compiler are listed and analyzed. Finally numbers regarding opportunities for method specialization the SPECjvm98 and SPECjbb2000 benchmarks suites are listed and investigated.