OpenJIT Frontend System: An Implementation of the Reflective JIT Compiler Frontend

OpenJIT is an open-ended, reflective JIT compiler framework for Java being researched and developed in a joint project by Tokyo Inst. Tech. and Fujitsu Ltd. Although in general self-descriptive systems have been studied in various contexts such as reflection and interpreter/compiler bootstrapping, OpenJIT is a first system we know to date that offers a stable, full-fledged Java JIT compiler that plugs into existing monolithic JVMs, and offer competitive performance to JITs typically written in C or C++. We propose an architecture for a reflective JIT compiler on a monolithic VM, and describe the details of its frontend system. And we demonstrate how reflective JITs could be useful classor application specific customization and optimization by providing an important reflective “hook” into a Java system.