Thursday, August 15, 2013

Just In Time Compiler

We discussed in my previous blog about how JVM makes java program platform independent but "everything in life comes at a cost". Java's two pass execution to achieve this platform independence,The process of Java Compiler first compiling the java source code into byte code and then the JVM interpreting the .class files into native processor does take a toll on execution time of a typical Java program. Thus java programs run always slower than the native compiled  languages like C. And adding to it interpreting the .class file's byte code instructions made the  Java programs really very slow.

So a lot of effort is and was invested on improving the execution speed of java programs. One of the breakthroughs of this effort is Just in Time Compilation.

Now before moving to this topic a general question most of us will surely have is :

If interpreter is slow why not compile Byte code first and then run?
   Please remember that we are not concerned about the programmer on how much time is spent on compiling a java code. All we are focused is about the user who runs our program and JVM comes into picture when JRE on a native platform is trying to run our program. Imagine how much time it may take to compile a whole bunch of .class files first and then load and start running it. The user may sleep while this happen. And the program loading will be terrible. 

So we must strike a right balance between this interpreting and compiling. And the answer as for as now with its own limitation which we will not cover here is Just in Time compilers.

The concept is derived from an inventory strategy companies employ to increase efficiency and decrease waste by receiving goods only when they are needed in production process there by reducing inventory costs.

Not all of code is used in a run cycle of a program. For example the error handling or certain conditional branching never happens in a particular run time of a program . So why compile entire code. 

"So JIT compilers of a JVM will compile the byte code into machine code only when it is referenced. And then JVM will execute it into native hardware. Functions are the smallest units and are compiled only when they are referenced."

Though JIT looks concept wise simple there are lot of pitfalls of JIT especially during compile optimizations. This is not covered in this discussion. However people interested can go through the below post.


Hope things are clear. Please share your comments on this article.


About Jdk,jre and jvm

   Things to Know about JDK,JRE and JVM

This is a favorite interview topic . Even though this is the most basic  information a java programmer must know, many fail to answer it perfectly. I am making an attempt to rewrite this information so that it will refresh the concept of few experienced and will help java beginners to know concept  in depth.
The below diagram should make things clear.

JDK:
Java Development Kit (JDK) = Java Runtime Environment (JRE) + Tools like compilers (JavaC)and debuggers necessary for developing java programs.
JRE:
JRE = Java Virtual Machine(JVM) + Java Runtime Libraries  + Components necessary to execute programs or applications written in java language.
JVM:
Programs written in Java are not directly compiled by Java Compiler (JavaC) for a particular hardware and operating system platform for execution.
Instead Java programs are compiled for an intermediate language called byte code which can be interpreted  by an virtual machine [A software ] called Java Virtual Machine (JVM). And this interpreted code can now run on the actual hardware and OS.
JVM thus makes java programs independent of the underlying hardware or operating system . So Java programs written on one platform need not change while attempted running it on a different code. Because Java programs are written for JVM's rather than actual machine it self.
Different platforms are provided with its on JRE which in turn includes the JVM for a particular platform. Means to say JVM for windows 32 bit machines and JVM for Linux 64 bit machines are different. However a java program written on the windows system can run on Linux 64 bit machine without any issues because, both JVM's can understand byte code.
However while interpreting into actual machine language , individual JVM's will take care of interpreting it correctly.
The below diagram should make things clear.
But one thing with interpreting the byte code is that it will make the execution slower. Now newer JRE's have capability for Just in Time compilation [JIT] which makes the compilation much faster.
I will write on this in my next blog.
Please share in your thoughts. Hope it benefited you.