tcljava-dev

[tcljava-dev] Using tclblend in a starkit

[Matt N. <mat...@hp...>]

So having got tclblend to compile as a stub-enabled extension - which
required some trickery for the case when it is loaded from a JVM, as opposed
to being loaded from tcl - I'll provide more details on that adventure
later..

My question is this - how can I go about making the whole tclblend package
as a starkit - scripts, dll and jars....

The stumbling block is the class loader - I am no java expert, but I am
aware that java apps can provide their own class loader implementation -
yes?

So what I had in mind was one that turns loader requests around as Tcl file
system accesses - thereby benefiting from the VFS layer etc.

Has anyone done this?
Could someone point me to any examples of simple class loaders and how one
"installs" them (forgive my ignorance)...

Such a capability would be really useful for the kind of embedded apps I use
and I don't mind doing the leg work I'm just lost as to where to start.

Matt

PS. I am a long-time (15 yrs) Tcl user and developer just a weenie where
Java is concerned.

Re: [tcljava-dev] Using tclblend in a starkit

[Mo D. <md...@un...>]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:28:55 +0000
Matt Newman <mat...@hp...> wrote:

Hi Matt

> My question is this - how can I go about making the whole tclblend package
> as a starkit - scripts, dll and jars....

Humm, that sounds tricky. Tcl Blend loads the JVM from dlls and I know that
starkits do some tricky magic to make it possible to load a dll from a statkit
filesystem. Thing is, the Java API also does some tricky dll loading stuff and
I don't know if you are going to be able to work around that. The Java JVM needs
to load the Tcl Blend dll from Java code in order to link up the native methods.
See the Interp.java file for Tcl Blend for an example of this.

> The stumbling block is the class loader - I am no java expert, but I am
> aware that java apps can provide their own class loader implementation -
> yes?

Well, yes. But the class loader is for Java classes. This native library loading
issue is not related to Java classes.

> So what I had in mind was one that turns loader requests around as Tcl file
> system accesses - thereby benefiting from the VFS layer etc.
> 
> Has anyone done this?
> Could someone point me to any examples of simple class loaders and how one
> "installs" them (forgive my ignorance)...

See the TclClassLoader.java file for an example of Java class loading. I have
never heard or read of anything like what you propose. Please let us know if
it works out.

Mo DeJong