Core Java

Introduction to Java Bytecode

This is an introduction about Java Bytecode using examples.

1. Introduction

Java is an extremely popular generic, object-oriented programming language. It is based on the “Write once, run anywhere (WORA)” principles.

Java is architecture-neutral and portable. Java source code once compiled can be run on any operating system and any hardware. Example: the Java source code written on a 64-bit Windows machine, once compiled can be run on a 32-bit Ubuntu machine without making any changes or without needing recompilation. This portability is possible because of the Java Bytecode.

2. Meaning of Java Bytecode

Java bytecode, simply put, is the representation of Java source code that the Java virtual machine (JVM) can interpret and run.Java Bytecode is generated after a java program is compiled.

2.1 Who creates java bytecode?

Java Bytecode - compilation steps
Steps to generate java bytecode

During compilation of a Java program, the compiler(javac) converts the source code that is your “.java” file into an intermediate low-level code that is in the binary format. This intermediate low-level, binary code format is the Java bytecode and gets saved as a .class file.

3. Advantages of Java Bytecode

Java developers do not need to understand the java bytecode to write code. However, according to the IBM developer Works journal,

Understanding bytecode and what bytecode is likely to be generated by a Java compiler helps the Java programmer in the same way that knowledge of assembly helps the C or C++ programmer.

Peter Haggar, IBM

Knowing how the java compiler converts your code from source to bytecode will help you understand how your program will perform in terms of speed of execution. This is crucial when doing performance tuning.

One other advantage of knowing bytecode would be that you would be able to decompile your .class files to their source code form. While there are many “Decompilers” (programs that convert .class to .java files) available, none of them are perfect and cannot handle all the instructions. Having knowledge of the java bytecode will help you in recreating your source code again.

4. Understanding the Bytecode

To understand what Bytecode is, we must first understand how a Java Virtual Machine works. In brief, it works as follows:

  1. The Java Virtual Machine is both a stack-based and register-based abstract machine.
  2. The java stack consists of frames. The stack makes a new frame for every method call.
  3. Each frame consists of a last-in-first-out(LIFO) operand stack and a local variables array.
  4. An instruction to the JVM consists of “opcodes” which are one-byte instructions of what operation is to be performed followed by the parameter values required.
  5. According to the Java Docs, ignoring exceptions this is what the JVM does.

JVM Algorithm

do {              
       atomically calculate pc and fetch opcode at pc;                                   
	   if (operands) fetch operands; 
	       execute the action for the opcode;
   } while (there is more to do);

The instruction set i.e opcodes can be broadly classified as:

  1. Load and store
  2. Arithmetic and logic
  3. Type conversion
  4. Object creation and manipulation
  5. Operand stack management
  6. Control transfer
  7. Method invocation and return

Most instructions encode the type information for the operations they do as a mnemonic. For example, “iadd” would add two integers(i) whereas “dadd” would add 2 double together.  The detailed description of each of the opcodes is available in the Java docs here.

Given below are all the opcodes along with their broad classification.

Java Bytecode - opcodes_java_bytecode
Java bytecode opcodes

The opcodes for the switch case is “tableswitch” and “lookupswitch”.

5. Bytecode generators

There are many java bytecode generators in the market like Jikes, Espresso, ASM, GNU Compiler for Java. The most popular one is ASM. However, the java sdk also has an inbuilt Dis-assembler known as “javap”.

5.1 Bytecode Example

To generate Java bytecode we use javap with the -c or -v (verbose) option. Next, we will see what the generated bytecode looks like and how it flows by considering a very simple calculator code.

SimpleCalculator.java

import java.util.Scanner;
public class SimpleCalculator {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		Scanner myObj = new Scanner(System.in); 
		int result = 0;
		boolean incorrect = false;

		System.out.println("Enter the operation(+, -, *, /).:");
		String oper = myObj.nextLine();

		System.out.println("Enter number1:");
		int num1 = myObj.nextInt();

		System.out.println("Enter number2:");
		int num2 = myObj.nextInt();

		switch (oper) {
		case "+":
			result = num1 + num2;
			break;
		case "-":
			result = num1 - num2;
			break;
		case "*":
			result = num1 * num2;
			break;
		case "/":
			if (num2 != 0) {
				result = num1 / num2;
			} else
				incorrect = true;
			System.out.println("Division not possible");
			break;
		}
		if (!incorrect) {
			System.out.println("Result is:" + result);
		}
		myObj.close();
	}
}

Generated bytecode using the javap -c option

Syntax: javap -c SimpleCalculator.class

SimpleCalculator.class

Compiled from "SimpleCalculator.java"
public class SimpleCalculator {
  public SimpleCalculator();
    Code:
       0: aload_0
       1: invokespecial #1                  // Method java/lang/Object."":()V
       4: return

  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: new           #2                  // class java/util/Scanner
       3: dup
       4: getstatic     #3                  // Field java/lang/System.in:Ljava/io/InputStream;
       7: invokespecial #4                  // Method java/util/Scanner."":(Ljava/io/InputStream;)V
      10: astore_1
      11: iconst_0
      12: istore_2
      13: iconst_0
      14: istore_3
      15: getstatic     #5                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      18: ldc           #6                  // String Enter the operation(+, -, *, /).:
      20: invokevirtual #7                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
      23: aload_1
      24: invokevirtual #8                  // Method java/util/Scanner.nextLine:()Ljava/lang/String;
      27: astore        4
      29: getstatic     #5                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      32: ldc           #9                  // String Enter number1:
      34: invokevirtual #7                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
      37: aload_1
      38: invokevirtual #10                 // Method java/util/Scanner.nextInt:()I
      41: istore        5
      43: getstatic     #5                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      46: ldc           #11                 // String Enter number2:
      48: invokevirtual #7                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
      51: aload_1
      52: invokevirtual #10                 // Method java/util/Scanner.nextInt:()I
      55: istore        6
      57: aload         4
      59: astore        7
      61: iconst_m1
      62: istore        8
      64: aload         7
      66: invokevirtual #12                 // Method java/lang/String.hashCode:()I
      69: tableswitch   { // 42 to 47
                    42: 140
                    43: 108
                    44: 169
                    45: 124
                    46: 169
                    47: 156
               default: 169
          }
     108: aload         7
     110: ldc           #13                 // String +
     112: invokevirtual #14                 // Method java/lang/String.equals:(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z
     115: ifeq          169
     118: iconst_0
     119: istore        8
     121: goto          169
     124: aload         7
     126: ldc           #15                 // String -
     128: invokevirtual #14                 // Method java/lang/String.equals:(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z
     131: ifeq          169
     134: iconst_1
     135: istore        8
     137: goto          169
     140: aload         7
     142: ldc           #16                 // String *
     144: invokevirtual #14                 // Method java/lang/String.equals:(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z
     147: ifeq          169
     150: iconst_2
     151: istore        8
     153: goto          169
     156: aload         7
     158: ldc           #17                 // String /
     160: invokevirtual #14                 // Method java/lang/String.equals:(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z
     163: ifeq          169
     166: iconst_3
     167: istore        8
     169: iload         8
     171: tableswitch   { // 0 to 3
                     0: 200
                     1: 209
                     2: 218
                     3: 227
               default: 251
          }
     200: iload         5
     202: iload         6
     204: iadd
     205: istore_2
     206: goto          251
     209: iload         5
     211: iload         6
     213: isub
     214: istore_2
     215: goto          251
     218: iload         5
     220: iload         6
     222: imul
     223: istore_2
     224: goto          251
     227: iload         6
     229: ifeq          241
     232: iload         5
     234: iload         6
     236: idiv
     237: istore_2
     238: goto          243
     241: iconst_1
     242: istore_3
     243: getstatic     #5                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
     246: ldc           #18                 // String Division not possible
     248: invokevirtual #7                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
     251: iload_3
     252: ifne          267
     255: getstatic     #5                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
     258: iload_2
     259: invokedynamic #19,  0             // InvokeDynamic #0:makeConcatWithConstants:(I)Ljava/lang/String;
     264: invokevirtual #7                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
     267: aload_1
     268: invokevirtual #20                 // Method java/util/Scanner.close:()V
     271: return
}

The bytecode flows as follows:

  • The bytecode starts with the public class and methods names.
  • Lines 0 to 14: initializes and stores all the constants, variables, and arrays.
  • Lines 15 to 66: initialize the user input variables, scanner objects.
  • Lines 69 to 108: the switch case is set up with references to when the instructions are loaded. This is called a jump table.
  •  Lines 108 to 169: this loads all the variables, methods, etc past the switch case code.
  • Lines 171 to 271: These lines are the switch case instructions where the add, subtract, mult, and div are loaded onto the stack. The goto belongs to the break statement which exits the control from the switch command and goes to the next line of code.

6. Disadvantages of Bytecode

  • Performance: The compiler generates the java bytecode. The interpreter then interprets and runs this code. This is an overhead and makes the overall program run slower than a native programming language program.
  • Even for a very small program, the entire JVM needs to be loaded into the memory.

7. Download the source code

We saw an example of a Simple Calculator for which we generated the java bytecode using the javap -c command.

Download
You can download the full source code of this example here: Introduction to Java Bytecode

Reshma Sathe

I am a recent Master of Computer Science degree graduate from the University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.I have previously worked as a Software Engineer with projects ranging from production support to programming and software engineering.I am currently working on self-driven projects in Java, Python and Angular and also exploring other frontend and backend technologies.
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