3.3 Methods Data Structure

• The Code attribute
• The LocalVariableTable attribute
• The LineNumberTable attribute

The methods data structure is an array of method structure items. Each item consists of:

• access flags (private/public/protected, static, final, synchronized, native, abstract, strictfp)
• method name reference (an index in the constant pool)
• descriptor reference (an index in the constant pool to the type of the method)
• attributes - an array of attributes

The last item is an array of additional attributes that provide additional information about the method. Each Java Virtual Machine should recognize the attributes Code, Exceptions, and Synthetic. Every method which is not abstract or native must have exactly one Code attribute (otherwise zero).

BML related method attributes are described in chapter Method attributes.