Enhance Hot Code Replacement

Name: rmT116609 Date: 08/21/2003


A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
As of JDK1.4.x it is possible to replace running "hot" code, as long as this does'nt affect the class' public signature in general.

  To really ease and speed development, this "hot code replacement" feature should be extended to include the possibility to alter class level and other "signature changing" operations (alter/add/remove methods and instance variables).

This would of course break serialization going out of the runing VM, but within the VM should be able to cope with the changning signature.

I believe, as far as I can remember, that the old IBM Visual Age for Java tool had a similar capability, where it was possible to alter almost everything without a "reboot" of the VM.


JUSTIFICATION :
Ease Of Development!

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Hot Code Replacement extended to include class-signature changes within the single running VM.
(Incident Review ID: 192049)
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