C: Method initialization issue

[xpenatan]

While working on a PSP 3D cube rendering port, I noticed strange behavior with some constants. After simplifying the code, I found a reproducible case.

It appears that static final fields whose initializer calls a Java method can be incorrectly initialized to 0 if a native method from the same class is called very early (e.g. before any other code in main).

Minimal Reproducible Example

// MethodInitTest.java
@Include("MethodInitTest.h")
public class MethodInitTest {

    public static int GU_COLOR_SHIFT(int n) {
        return n << 2;
    }

    // This field is initialized by calling a method in the same class
    public static final int GU_COLOR_8888 = GU_COLOR_SHIFT(7);   // should be 28

    @Import(name = "testMethod")
    public static native void testMethod();
}

// MethodInitTest.h
#pragma once

void testMethod() {
    // empty for this test
}

public class TestCLauncher {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        MethodInitTest.testMethod();
        System.out.println("GU_COLOR_8888: " + MethodInitTest.GU_COLOR_8888);
    }
}

When you call testMethod() first → GU_COLOR_8888 prints 0
When you do NOT call testMethod() → GU_COLOR_8888 prints 28 (correct)
When testMethod() is moved to another class (e.g. NativeUtils.testMethod()), the constant works and return 28.

[konsoletyper]

For now the workaround is not to combine static imported method and lazily initialized static constants in the same class. I should review this, but it could be that this was deliberate decision due to performance reason and compiler simplicity.

[xpenatan]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll be careful not to do this in future classes and will structure them accordingly.