[squeak-dev] JNIPort preview for Squeak and Pharo available on SqueakSource

Levente Uzonyi leves at elte.hu
Wed Jun 9 14:11:54 UTC 2010


On Tue, 8 Jun 2010, Joachim Geidel wrote:

> I have made a preview release of JNIPort for Pharo/Squeak available on
> SqueakSource:
>    http://www.squeaksource.com/JNIPort.html
>
> JNIPort is a Smalltalk library which allows Java code to be invoked from
> Smalltalk. It acts as a bridge between the world of Smalltalk objects and a
> Java Virtual Machine (JVM) where Java code is executing.
>
> If you want to know what can be done with JNIPort, see
>
> http://philemonworks.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/google-api-access-from-smallta
> lk-using-jniport/
> for an example.
>
> Installation instructions are on the Wiki at SqueakSource. See
> http://jniport.wikispaces.com/ for more information about JNIPort.
>
> The current state of the Pharo/Squeak version of JNIPort (as of June 8,
> 2010):
>
> * Starting a JVM seems to lead to a deadlock in Squeak 4.1, but not in
> Pharo. When you start a JVM, nothing happens until you hit command-. (on a
> Mac), wait until a notifier for the user interrupt appears, and proceed. The
> problem seems to be somewhere in WeakRegistry; it disappears when you
> replace Squeak?s WeakRegistry by the WeakRegistry class from a Pharo image.

That's really interesting. I tried to reproduce it on windows without 
success, the jvm just failed to start, then alien crashed the image. Can 
you send a stack trace of the deadlock?


Levente

> * The UTF16TextConverter in Squeak 4.1 has a bug. I found the same problem
> in Pharo and reported it there, a patch is already in the queue for Pharo. I
> have no idea if this will automatically make it into Squeak. See
>>> http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=2516
>> This means that java.lang.String objects will probably result in junk when
>> they are converted to Smalltalk Strings in Squeak 4.1.
>
> * Callbacks from Java to Smalltalk are not yet supported.
> * In contrast to VisualWorks and Dolphin, JNIPort does not create ghost
> classes as wrappers for Java classes, but creates ?real? classes which can
> be seen in the system browser. It also does not copy prototypes of
> CompiledMethods when a wrapper class or a Java class is created, because
> this causes VM failures in Pharo 1.0. Instead, methods are compiled from
> source code. This has a performance impact, of course.
> * Another difference from the VisualWorks and Dolphin versions is that
> wrappers for Java methods without arguments don?t have selectors ending with
> an awkward ?_null? suffix.
> * JNIPort has been developed and tested with Pharo 1.0 on Mac OS X 10.6.3.
> If it works on other operating systems has yet to be tested.
> * I don?t have a Metacello configuration yet.
>
> The next steps will be:
> * Adding support for callbacks from Java to Smalltalk.
> * Testing it on more platforms.
> * Reorganization of the documentation on the JNIPort wiki, and addition of
> Pharo/Squeak specific documentation similar to the documentation for the
> VisualWorks version.
> * Release of JNIPort 2.0 for VisualWorks and Pharo/Squeak when everything is
> stable. This will be after the release of Pharo 1.1.
>
> If it works in Squeak 4.1 or on Linux or Windows, please let me know,
> especially if you had to do something which might be worth mentioning in the
> installation instructions.
>
> Have fun with JNIPort, and let me know if it works!
>
> Joachim Geidel
>
>



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