DJVM and reflection


Mike Hearn
 

I strongly suspect we can do something about reflection, it's just not been a priority so far. The SecurityManager architecture supports controlling reflection and the DJVM already loads into its own classloader. Determinism will be opt-in anyway, so it may be that it's rolled out in phases.


Roman Plášil
 

I didn't test it on latest so it's possible. The version I used is with corda 4.1, commit c11f6c15f7

Kinda bummed about no reflection then. Anyone else here has views? Do you write contracts fully manually and then hold fingers crossed?


Chris Rankin
 

Hi Roman,


There are currently no plans to create "safe" Java reflection inside the DJVM, but I am concerned that you are seeing errors with SomeState::class. The latest version of the DJVM code (from the https://github.com/corda/djvm repository) does execute this test successfully:


    @Test
    fun `test kotlin class access`() = parentedSandbox {
        val executor = TaskExecutor(classLoader)
        val accessTask = executor.toSandboxClass(AccessKotlinClass::class.java).newInstance()
        assertThat(executor.execute(accessTask, "Message")).isEqualTo(executor.toSandboxClass(String::class.java))
        assertThat(executor.execute(accessTask, 0L)).isEqualTo(executor.toSandboxClass(Long::class.javaObjectType))
        assertThat(executor.execute(accessTask, null)).isEqualTo(executor.toSandboxClass(Henry::class.java))
    }

    class AccessKotlinClass : Function<Any?, Class<*>> {
        override fun apply(input: Any?): Class<*> {
            return if (input == null) {
                Henry::class.java
            } else {
                input::class.java
            }
        }
    }

    class Henry

Are you using an old version of the DJVM, please? What kind of error are you seeing?

Cheers,

Chris



From: corda-dev@groups.io <corda-dev@groups.io> on behalf of Roman Plášil via Groups.Io <quiark@...>
Sent: 05 August 2019 06:40:54
To: corda-dev@groups.io <corda-dev@groups.io>
Subject: [corda-dev] DJVM and reflection
 
Hi,

I would like to ask whether we can reasonably expect to have basic reflection available for contract code when DJVM becomes required. I understand when left unchecked, reflection could bypass any security checks but on the other hand, I guess we are not the only ones currently using it. It is mostly for the purpose of ensuring that equality of all properties is checked during state evolution. So getting a list of properties (possibly even inherited ones) as well as being able to invoke a property reference would be needed. (I know about the trick with .copy() but it is simply not flexible enough)

I tried with the current DJVM tool and get blocked as soon as using SomeState::class which we also use to construct exception message in some helper functions.

If this is not possible, I also thought about some code generation / macros for contracts, is anyone going in this direction?

 

Roman Plášil | Principal Engineer

CryptoBLK Limited  I  Revolutionize IT with Cryptography and Blockchain

romanplasil@...


Roman Plášil
 

Hi,

I would like to ask whether we can reasonably expect to have basic reflection available for contract code when DJVM becomes required. I understand when left unchecked, reflection could bypass any security checks but on the other hand, I guess we are not the only ones currently using it. It is mostly for the purpose of ensuring that equality of all properties is checked during state evolution. So getting a list of properties (possibly even inherited ones) as well as being able to invoke a property reference would be needed. (I know about the trick with .copy() but it is simply not flexible enough)

I tried with the current DJVM tool and get blocked as soon as using SomeState::class which we also use to construct exception message in some helper functions.

If this is not possible, I also thought about some code generation / macros for contracts, is anyone going in this direction?

 

Roman Plášil | Principal Engineer

CryptoBLK Limited  I  Revolutionize IT with Cryptography and Blockchain

romanplasil@...