The Java Language Specification, Third Edition

13.1 The Form of a Binary BINARY COMPATIBILITY
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◆ If the expression is of the form this(...), then the qualifying type of the
expression is C.
A reference to a constructor must be resolved at compile time to a symbolic
reference to the erasure (§4.6) of the qualifying type of the invocation, plus
the signature of the constructor (§8.8.2). The signature of a constructor must
include both:
◆ The number of parameters to the constructor
◆ A symbolic reference to the type of each parameter
In addition the constructor of a non-private inner member class must be compiled
such that it has as its first parameter, an additional implicit parameter
representing the immediately enclosing instance (§8.1.3).
• Any constructs introduced by the compiler that do not have a corresponding
construct in the source code must be marked as synthetic, except for default
constructors and the class initialization method.
A binary representation for a class or interface must also contain all of the following:
• If it is a class and is not class Object, then a symbolic reference to the erasure
of the direct superclass of this class
• A symbolic reference to the erasure of each direct superinterface, if any
• A specification of each field declared in the class or interface, given as the
simple name of the field and a symbolic reference to the erasure of the type of
the field
• If it is a class, then the erased signature of each constructor, as described
above
• For each method declared in the class or interface, its erased signature and
return type, as described above
• The code needed to implement the class or interface:
DRAFT
◆ For an interface, code for the field initializers
◆ For a class, code for the field initializers, the instance and static initializers,
and the implementation of each method or constructor
• Every type must contain sufficient information to recover its canonical name
(§6.7).