Does Java Instrumentation Agent support New Method Definition in a class?

Question

I reloaded on of my test application classes using Instrumentation#redefineClasses(ClassDefinition) method. When I tried adding a new method in the class file and call it from an existing method. It was not happy to for me to do so. But when I called some existing method and other Java Built-In Library methods, it was working fine.

My question is - Is this limitation known/acknowledged by Oracle or Open JDK implementations? I suspect even if you can redefine/retransform your classes using INstrumentation Manifest.MF file - there must be somre sort of limitations to how far you can go with it.

Does anyone have any experience in this thing?

Answer 1

From Instrumentation.html#redefineClasses:

The redefinition may change method bodies, the constant pool and attributes. The redefinition must not add, remove or rename fields or methods, change the signatures of methods, or change inheritance. These restrictions maybe be lifted in future versions. The class file bytes are not checked, verified and installed until after the transformations have been applied, if the resultant bytes are in error this method will throw an exception.

So the answer would be no, it's not possible.