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• At VM bootstrap, the ARR array is referenced indirectly by an ArchivedKlassSubGraphInfoRecord, whose root object is stored in the Root List, so it's reachable.
• Later, when the ArchivedKlassSubGraphInfoRecord is initialized, its root object is removed from the Root List and stored into Java static field (e.g., ArchivedBootLayer. archivedBootLayer), and ARR will be indirectly referenced from there.
• Later, when ARR is discarded by the HashMap due to table expansion, it is no longer reachable. G1 knows that ARR is dead and will never dereference ARR[n].

Support Archived Heap for other collectors

With the Root List, it should be fairly easy to support Archived Heap for SerialGC and ParallelGC:

• At VM bootstrap, reserve enough space in the old generation
• Copy objects in the Open Region and Closed Region into the old generation
  • Relocation may be necessary, since the Open/Closed regions assume that they are mapped to a pre-determined address, which may be different than the location of the old generation
  • There's already code for doing this kind of relocation (see HeapShared::patch_archived_heap_embedded_pointers)
  • The Open/Closed regions may be divided into at most 4 blocks with gaps in between. The easiest way to handle the gaps is to fill them with a dummy array.
• Even with the copying/patching, the start up time should still be much faster than running without the Archived Heap. Without the Archived Heap, we need to create many expensive data structures (such as the module graph) from scratch, which is very time consuming.
  • G1 with Archived Heap = 32ms
  • G1 without Archived Heap = 57ms
  • Copying/patching = less than 1ms.