- 1.1 A Bit of History
- 1.2 The Java Virtual Machine
- 1.3 Organization of the Specification
- 1.4 Notation
- 1.5 Feedback
1.3 Organization of the Specification
Chapter 2 gives an overview of the Java Virtual Machine architecture.
Chapter 3 introduces compilation of code written in the Java programming language into the instruction set of the Java Virtual Machine.
Chapter 4 specifies the class file format, the hardware- and operating system-independent binary format used to represent compiled classes and interfaces.
Chapter 5 specifies the start-up of the Java Virtual Machine and the loading, linking, and initialization of classes and interfaces.
Chapter 6 specifies the instruction set of the Java Virtual Machine, presenting the instructions in alphabetical order of opcode mnemonics.
Chapter 7 gives a table of Java Virtual Machine opcode mnemonics indexed by opcode value.
In the Second Edition of The Java® Virtual Machine Specification, Chapter 2 gave an overview of the Java programming language that was intended to support the specification of the Java Virtual Machine but was not itself a part of the specification. In The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 8 Edition, the reader is referred to The Java Language Specification, Java SE 8 Edition for information about the Java programming language. References of the form: (JLS §x.y) indicate where this is necessary.
In the Second Edition of The Java® Virtual Machine Specification, Chapter 8 detailed the low-level actions that explained the interaction of Java Virtual Machine threads with a shared main memory. In The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 8 Edition, the reader is referred to Chapter 17 of The Java Language Specification, Java SE 8 Edition for information about threads and locks. Chapter 17 reflects The Java Memory Model and Thread Specification produced by the JSR 133 Expert Group.