Method and apparatus for pre-processing and packaging class files

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for pre-processing class files, said computer program product comprising:
• computer readable program code configured to cause a computer to determine a plurality of duplicated elements in a plurality of class files;
• computer readable program code configured to cause a computer to form a shared table comprising said plurality of duplicated elements;
• computer readable program code configured to cause a computer to remove said duplicated elements from said plurality of class files to obtain a plurality of reduced class files;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to cause a computer to form a multi-class file comprising said plurality of reduced class files and said shared table.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory coupled to said processor;
• a plurality of class files stored in said memory;
• a process executing on said processor, said process configured to form a multi-class file comprising:
• a plurality of reduced class files obtained from said plurality of class files by removing one or more elements that are duplicated between two or more of said plurality of class files;
• and
• a shared table comprising said duplicated elements.

A memory configured to store data for access by a virtual machine executing in a computer system, comprising:

• a data structure stored in said memory, said data structure comprising:
• a plurality of reduced class files associated with a plurality of corresponding classes, said plurality of reduced class files configured to be loaded by the virtual machine for execution of said plurality of classes;
• a shared table comprising one or more elements that are duplicated between two or more of said plurality of classes, said shared table configured to be loaded into the virtual machine to be accessed for said duplicated elements;
• and
• a memory requirement value configured to be read by a class loader of the virtual machine to allocate a portion of a runtime data area for loading said plurality of reduced class files and said shared table.