invokevirtual

invokevirtual
indexbyte1
indexbyte2

; dispatch based on class

Forms
invokevirtual = 182 (0xb6)

Stack
..., objectref, [arg1, [arg2 ...]] ...

Description
The unsigned indexbyte1 and indexbyte2 are used to construct an index into the constant pool of the current class (§3.6), where the value of the index is (indexbyte1 << 8) | indexbyte2. The item at that index in the constant pool must have the tag CONSTANT_Methodref (§4.4.2), a reference to a class name, a method name, and the method's descriptor (§4.3.3). The named method is resolved (§5.2). The descriptor of the resolved method must be identical to the descriptor of the one of the methods of the resolved class. The method must not be <init>, an instance initialization method (§3.8), or <clinit>, a class or interface initialization method (§3.8). Finally, if the method is protected (§4.6), then it must be either a member of the current class or a member of a superclass of the current class, and the class of objectref must be either the current class or a subclass of the current class.

The constant pool entry representing the resolved method includes an unsigned index into the method table of the resolved class and an unsigned byte nargs that must not be zero.

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Java Virtual Machine Specification (HTML generated by dkramer on February 25, 1997)
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