[hibernate-dev] Bytecode enhancement

See https://hibernate.onjira.com/browse/HHH-7667 I want to investigate expanding Hibernate's support for bytecode enhancement. I can see 3 main fronts to this: 1) offloading map lookups from the PersistenceContext . Currently we keep state associated with each entity in a map (a special type of map called IdentityMap) on the PersistenceContext, keyed by the entity. Profiling consistently shows these maps as a hot-spot. The main thing we keep in the PersistenceContext in regards to the entity is called an EntityEntry, which is kept in an IdentityMap<Object,EntityEntry> (again, the entity is the key). So the thought here is to invert this from `map.get( entity )` to something like `( (Enhanced) entity ).getEntityEntry()` 2) More performant dirty-checking. This already exists, to an extent, in the current Hibernate bytecode. The idea being that we could use "interception" within the enhanced entity to know when it becomes dirty. Well, almost. What is missing is "deep checking of mutable state fields". For example, an entity attribute of type Date that is "changed" via entity.getSomeDate().setTime( ... ). The entity needs to be found dirty here, because its "someDate" attribute value has changed, but interception will not catch this. And I think this should be configurable (whether the user wants us to perform "deep mutable state checking"). We have all the pieces in place to handle this already through Type.isMutable() as Hibernate already does a great job of finding dirty fields in the most flexible manner. We just need to determine how to best wire that up into enhancement. 3) Alternative means for lazy loading of entity state, meaning an alternative to using proxies for the same purpose. This is different, too, from the current enhancement capability of lazy loading of property state. Lazy property loading is meant to delay loading of certain field(s) until they are accessed. Looking for input about how to best design this. First, is Javassist the best choice? That is what we currently use for enhancement. Beyond that, I am not a bytecode enhancement (by any stretch), so any ideas/pointers are welcome. Thanks. -- steve(a)hibernate.org http://hibernate.org