Do any compilers for the JVM use the "wide" goto?

There is no reason to use goto_w when the branch fits into a goto. But you seem to have missed that the branches are relative, using a signed offset, as a branch can also go backward.

You don’t notice it when looking at the output of a tool like javap, as it calculates the resulting absolute target address before printing.

So goto’s range of -327678 … +32767‬ is not always enough to address each possible target location in the 0 … +65535 range.

For example, the following method will have a goto_w instruction at the beginning:

public static void methodWithLargeJump(int i) {
    for(; i == 0;) {
        try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: 
        try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: 
        try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: 
        try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: 
        try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: try {x();} finally { switch(i){ case 1: 
        } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } 
    }
}
static void x() {}

Demo on Ideone

Compiled from "Main.java"
class LargeJump {
  public static void methodWithLargeJump(int);
    Code:
       0: iload_0
       1: ifeq          9
       4: goto_w        57567
…

The size of the method code can be as large as 64K.

The branch offset of the short goto is a signed 16-bit integer: from -32768 to 32767.

So, the short offset is not enough to make a jump from the beginning of 65K method to the end.

Even javac sometimes emits goto_w. Here is an example:

public class WideGoto {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        for (int i = 0; i < 1_000_000_000; ) {
            i += 123456;
            // ... repeat 10K times ...
        }
    }
}

Decompiling with javap -c:

  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: iconst_0
       1: istore_1
       2: iload_1
       3: ldc           #2
       5: if_icmplt     13
       8: goto_w        50018     // <<< Here it is! A jump to the end of the loop
          ...