gnu.bytecode class generation

[Nick Collier <nick at src dot uchicago dot edu>]

Hi,

I'm interested in using the byte code generation parts to dynamically create 
objects. The overall context here is a scheduling mechanism for executing 
methods on java objects. These method calls get wrapped by another class that 
implements an interface that scheduling mechanism knows how to handle. At the 
moment, users need to do this wrapping themselves typically with an inner 
class, and then schedule the execution of this inner class object. So we have 
something like:

schedule.scheduleActionBeginning(1, new BasicAction() {
  public void execute() {
    some_object.some_method();
  }
});

Its also possible to do this using reflection where a BasicAction subclass 
takes an object and a method name as parameters and invokes that method on 
the object in the call to execute(). However, execute() potentialy gets 
called tens of thousands of times (sometimes more) and reflection is 
demonstrably slower.

What I'd like to do is something like:

schedule.scheduleActionBeginning(1, some_object, "some_method_name");

and use gnu.bytecode to generate a BasicAction class that calls

some_object.some_method_name();

inside the execute method. This is the beginning of experiments in 
simplifying and ultimately hiding the scheduling mechanism from users.

I've looked at the javadoc docs and it seems that this should be no problem. 
I'm familiar with the class file format, but I'm unsure how to proceed using 
gnu.bytecode. I suppose what I'm asking is pointers on how to create a fairly 
simple java class with a few ivars and a single method using gnu.bytecode. 

thanks,

Nick

-- 
Nick Collier
Social Science Research Computing
University of Chicago
http://repast.sourceforge.net