Biggest method in java?

[Vedhas Pitkar]

Hi just curious to know which is the biggest method (line size) in the java API.Does anyone know?

[Jeroen Wenting]

there's a theoretical limit of 65 kilobytes of bytecode per method.
How many lines of code that leads to will depend on the code.
A single statement can lead to a lot of bytecode.

If you've ever created complex JSPs and forgot to split them up and use dynamic includes you'll have run up against this limit

[Vedhas Pitkar]

Hi Jeroen,
Didnt understand by what "there's a theoretical limit of 65 kilobytes of bytecode per method" means

[fred rosenberger]

When you write a method, you compile it into bytecode. this is the language that the JVM understands and translates into the machine-specific intructions at runtime.

anyway, there is not a 1-1 correspondence between a line of java and a line of bytecode. one 15 character line of java might translate to 5-6 lines of bytecode of 10 characters each.

the total amount of bytecode for a single method cannot exceed 65k in size.

at least, i think that's what Jeroen means.

[Jeroen Wenting]

that's indeed what I meant. Thought I was clear

[fred rosenberger]

i guess my italicized 'think' was more because i sometimes doubt myself rather than because i didn't understand what you meant.

maybe i should have italicized the "i" instead.

sorry.

[Vedhas Pitkar]

Where can I find more info on this ?In the VM spec?