> On Jul 12, 2016, at 2:00 PM, Paul Benedict <pbened...@apache.org> wrote: > > Mandy, perhaps there is a JVM technicality here I'm unfamiliar with. My > understanding of loading a class has always been that it's coupled with > running its static initializers.
Loading, linking, and initializing are separate parts specified in JVM spec section 5 [1]. A good reference is that 3-arg Class::forName takes an initialize parameter that specifies if the class initializer should be invoked after a class is loaded. > So my inference was that the class does not get loaded into memory because > the latter no longer occurs with --dry-run. > To be clear, -—dry-run initiaizes the VM, loads the main class but the main method is not invoked. The main class’s <clinit> is not invoked. Mandy [1] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se8/html/jvms-5.html
