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jna

README.md

  • infos =
  • infos/author = Markus Raab [email protected]
  • infos/status = maintained
  • infos/provides =
  • infos/description =

JNA

A Java binding using JNA. This binding requires Elektra to be installed on the system to work.

In preparation for introducing a more high level dynamic proxy based API, the JNA binding is currently structured as Gradle multi-project setup.

To read more about the thinking behind the current implementation, click here.

You can run the HelloElekra example by executing:

./gradlew hello:run

If this fails, make sure you have at least Java version 11 or higher installed and the JAVA_HOME environment variable points to its installation directory.

Usage

To use the bindings in a Java project, we have to include the jar file libelektra-$VERSION.jar in the project. The version number is the same one as used for Elektra.

Build

This jar is created upon building Elektra if you include the JNA bindings during the build process, e.g., with cmake -DBINDINGS=jna. Check out COMPILE for more details on how to include bindings in the build process. To make sure the build will be successfull, make sure the following requirements are met:

  • gradle must be installed on your machine, otherwise jna will not be included during compilation.
  • Use a JDK version <=17. Higher versions will result in Unsupported class file major version 62/63 errors.

Internally, Gradle will be used to actually compile the plugin.

JNI

Please note that the JNI plugin serves a different purpose. We use the JNI plugin to develop plugins for Elektra itself, whereas the JNA bindings allow to use Elektra to access configuration in Java projects. The JNI plugin is not required for the JNA bindings to work. But, to develop JNI plugins, JNA can be used. Here are example plugins, which need JNI at runtime.

Command line

Linux

For using the binding as standalone (to write applications using Elektra), make sure that CLASSPATH includes jna.jar and libelektra.jar (or this directory which contains the libelektra subdirectory that corresponds to the libelektra.jar), e.g.:

export CLASSPATH=".:/usr/share/java/libelektra.jar:/usr/share/java/jna.jar"

Then you can compile and run HelloElektra:

javac HelloElektra.java && java HelloElektra

macOS

Using the bindings via the command line works the same way as in Linux. The difference is that in macOS the jar file gets generally installed to /usr/local/share/java.

Using a build system

To use the JNA bindings via a build system supporting Maven dependencies, you can depend on a released version published to Maven Central (available since version 0.9.5).

Alternatively you can install the JNA bindings to your local Maven repository (see instructions below).

When you have built Elektra with the JNA binding included, it will also be automatically installed to /usr/share/java/ along with a pom file for the library.

Maven

Simply add libelektra as dependency using:

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.libelektra</groupId>
      <artifactId>libelektra</artifactId>
      <version>0.11.0</version>
    </dependency>

Here is a full example using Maven, which should work out of the box by executing mvn compile exec:java in the example directory ../../../examples/external/java/read-keys-example/.

Gradle

Simply add libelektra as dependency to you Gradle java or java-library project using:

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation "org.libelektra:libelektra:0.11.0"
}

Here is a full example using Gradle, which should work out of the box by executing gradle run in the example directory ../../../examples/external/java/read-keys-example/.

Installing the JNA binding to the local Maven repository

Release versions of the Elektra JNA bindings are published to Maven Central with group id org.libelektra, artefact id libelektra and the same version as Elektra.

If you want to depend on a modified binding or just want to install it to your local maven repository, change your current working directory to the JNA binding folder /src/bindings/jna. Either use the bundled Gradle wrapper (./gradlew for Unix style OS or ./gradlew.bat for windows) or ensure a recent Gradle version is available on your system and execute:

gradle publishToMavenLocal

This will update the local Maven repository with your current version of the JNA binding as SNAPSHOT version. To specify a desired version number (e.g. 1.0.0-mymod) execute the following command instead:

gradle -PreleaseVersion=1.0.0-mymod publishToMavenLocal

You can verify success by listing the directory ~/.m2/repository/org/libelektra/libelektra/1.0.0-mymod/.

Using Elektra Plugins

The PluginLoader can be used to load a native Elektra plugin which is written in C/C++. You can load a native Elektra Plugin like the following:

PluginLoader pluginLoader = new PluginLoader();
Plugin errorPlugin = pluginLoader.loadElektraPlugin("error");

Now you can pass a KeySet and let the Plugin do its work. E.g., the code below tests if the error plugin.

Key errorKey = Key.create("user:/tests/myError");
errorKey.setMeta(errorMeta, OutOfMemoryException.errorNumber());
final KeySet ks = KeySet.create(10, KeySet.KS_END);
ks.append(errorKey);
errorPlugin.kdbSet(ks, parentKey);
\\ OutOfMemoryException is thrown

Another example is the range plugin which throws the equivalent Java exception:

PluginLoader pluginLoader = new PluginLoader();
Plugin rangePlugin = pluginLoader.loadElektraPlugin("range");
Key rangeKey = Key.create("user:/tests/myError", "30");
rangeKey.setMeta("check/range", "1-20");
final KeySet ks = KeySet.create(10, KeySet.KS_END);
ks.append(rangeKey);
rangePlugin.kdbSet(ks, parentKey);
//org.libelektra.exception.SemanticValidationException: Sorry, module range issued error C03200:
//Value '30' of key 'user:/tests/myError' not within range 1-20
//Configfile: user:/tests/javabinding
//Mountpoint: user:/tests/javabinding
//At: .../elektra/src/plugins/range/range.c:447

Note that the PluginLoader can also load Plugins written in Java such as the PropertiesStorage plugin:

PluginLoader pluginLoader = new PluginLoader();
Plugin propertiesStoragePlugin = pluginLoader.loadJavaPlugin(PropertiesStorage.PLUGIN_NAME);

Implementing Plugins

The Plugin interface can be used to develop your own Elektra plugins written in Java. You have to implement the necessary methods which are of interest to you such as set(KeySet ks, Key parentKey) for plugins which should change the key database. We added a tutorial with more details for you here. You can see various examples in the plugin folder like the PropertiesStorage plugin which can be used to save and load .properties files into Elektra.

Testing

Command Line

You can run unit tests by invoking:

./gradlew test

Release publishing to Maven Central

Release publishing is done via buildAndPublishMaven() in Jenkinsfile.release.

Upgrading Gradle

To upgrade the Gradle version used by the JNA bindings, the following steps should be considered:

Contributing

Please only use Javadoc compliant tags when documenting the code.