Hi Paul,

Would it make sense to add these methods to the IndexOutOfBoundsException class 
itself or is there a compatibility worry?  Seems better to use the room in 
IndexOutOfBoundsException class file and keep these methods out of the Arrays 
class.  It is also odd that in the future the LinkedList would depend on the 
Arrays class to check bounds.

Jason

________________________________________
From: core-libs-dev <core-libs-dev-boun...@openjdk.java.net> on behalf of Paul 
Sandoz <paul.san...@oracle.com>
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 8:42 AM
To: core-libs-dev
Subject: RFR 8135248: Add utility methods to check indexes and ranges

Hi,

Please review the following which adds methods to Arrays to check indexes and 
ranges:

  https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8135248
  
http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~psandoz/jdk9/JDK-8135248-array-check-index-range/webrev/

The original motivation was an intrinsic method, Arrays.checkIndex, to check if 
an index is within bounds. Such an intrinsic guides HotSpot towards better 
optimisations for bounds checks using one unsigned comparison instead of two 
signed comparisons, and better eliding of integer to long conversions when an 
index is used to create an offset for Unsafe access. The end result is more 
efficient array access especially so from within unrolled loops. The VarHandles 
work will use Arrays.checkIndex for array access.

A follow up issue [1] will track the intrinsification of Arrays.checkIndex.

We thought it would be opportunistic to support two further common use-cases 
for sub-range checks, Arrays.checkFromToIndex and Arrays.
checkFromIndexSize. There is no current plan to intrinsify these methods.

Bounds checking is not difficult but it can be easy to make trivial mistakes. 
Thus it is advantageous to consolidate such checks not just from an 
optimization perspective but from a correctness and security/integrity 
perspective.

There are many areas in the JDK where such checks are performed. A follow up 
issue [2] will track updates to use the new methods.

The main challenge for these new methods is to design in such a way that

1) existing use-cases can still report the same set of exceptions with the same 
messages;
2) method byte code size is not unduly increased, thus perturbing inlining; and
3) there is a reasonable path for any future support of long indexes.

Paul.

[1] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8042997
[2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8135250

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