We are proposing changing the implementation java/lang/Class.getSigners and setSigners to not require a signers field per class (which is currently injected by the JVM) to save footprint. This change requires that we discontinue support for reporting the signers object ID in hprof format per class.

For protection domains, the proposed change will expose this field as a private field in java/lang/Class so normal hprof heap walking will find this field.

Proposed change to the hprof spec: jdk/src/share/demo/jvmti/hprof/manual.html is
http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~coleenp/manual.html