Today I am ready to release some code, finally. I mean, what is the summer of code without, you guessed it, a little code... or a lot.

At this point I have a module that will allow you to import and call Java code, both natively and class compiled. Unfortunatly, the ability to pass arguments, recieve return values or catch exceptions, are all in inconsistent states of development and are currently not workable. So, for the meantime you will only be able to call empty Java constructors and methods without arguments. All these features are close behind, I just wanted to give a taste of what's to come.

There will be a subversion repository setup at http://www.robotninjas.org/repos/javainclude in the next couple of days so if you're interested, keep your eyes open. This repo will constantly be up and down do to the fact that I will be moving at least twice in the next month. I will also post a tarball development snapshot on my webpage at http://www.umich.edu/~rusekd/ which will be more readily accessible.

There will also be updated documenataion on my personal website; this can be found under the "Summer of Code" section at http://www.umich.edu/~rusekd/. Keep your eyes open for that as well.

A brief introduction of how to use this module:

BEGIN {
$ENV{CLASSPATH}=. #set your classpath
};

use Java::Import qw(
somepackage.TestClass
);

my $test = new somepackage::TestClass();
$test->methodOne();
$test->methodTwo();
$test->methodThree();

The performance is less than stellar; a similar program written completely in Java and run by gij is 66% faster. However, the first goal here is to get it all working then I'll start hammering away on performance. I already have a few things in mind that I can do/change.

In the future, here's a small little list of things I'll be trying to accomplish.

Java::Import (Very Important):

• Allow user to pass arguments to Java
• Allow user to recieve return values from Java
• Allow user to catch Exceptions (in a Perl way) from Java
• Hammer out type conversions between Java primitives and Perl value

Overall things that need to be done (Moderately Important):

• Get Java::Inline working with GIJ
• Finish Documenataion on website
• Get Subversion Repo working

Things to do if time permits:

• Build Java::Inline::GCJ which works like Inline::CPP but with GCJ acting as the compiler instead. This is a large project in and of itself so it might not get completely done by the end of August, but like everything else in this project, I'm in it for the long haul so it'll get done one way or another.