Note that the version in the LinkedClass does not cover methods nor
exportedMembers as they have their individual versions. (The
collections themselves are not versioned).
Moreover, the version is relative to the identity of a LinkedClass.
The definition of identity varies as linked classes progress through the
linking pipeline, but it only gets stronger, i.e., if two linked classes
are id-different at phase P, then they must also be id-different at phase
P+1. The converse is not true. This guarantees that versions can be used
reliably to determine at phase P+1 whether a linked class coming from phase
P must be reprocessed.
A ClassDef after linking.
Note that the version in the LinkedClass does not cover methods nor exportedMembers as they have their individual versions. (The collections themselves are not versioned).
Moreover, the version is relative to the identity of a LinkedClass. The definition of identity varies as linked classes progress through the linking pipeline, but it only gets stronger, i.e., if two linked classes are id-different at phase P, then they must also be id-different at phase P+1. The converse is not true. This guarantees that versions can be used reliably to determine at phase P+1 whether a linked class coming from phase P must be reprocessed.