[DaGuy]

I have a very efficient development setup on my MacOS 9 partion which I wish to imitate in MacOS X PB. It's essentialy a folder with aliases for javac, JBindery and few other SDK tools. Draging a source file into the javac icon automatically compiles it and places the resulting .class file in the same directory. I then drag the .class to JBindery alias, and click "run" when the dialog window comes up. This quick and dirty setup is awesome for quick testing of simple disparate pieces of code that do not merit a Project Builder project and all the associated overhead files and file structures. Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks,
-FB

------------------


[This message has been edited by DaGuy (edited 02-16-2001).]

[IamBob]

Well, write a wrapper for what you want to do.

Roughly:

Code:
import java.io.*;

public class ShellAccess {

    private String msg = "", msg1 = "", emsg = "";
    private File[] class_files;

    private BufferedReader stdin;
   // private PrintWriter stdout;
    private BufferedReader stderr;
    

    public ShellAccess() {} 

 // compile the .java files and return the .class files..
 // pass something like: yourArray = {"javac", "-classpath", "whatever..", "Main.java", "Helper.java"};
    public final File[] compile(String[] cmndArray) {
        msg = "";
        emsg = "";
        
        try {
            Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmdArray);

            stdin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream())); 
            stderr = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader (p.getErrorStream()));

       // if you want to input something while it's running (not useable for a javac/java wrapper, really)...
           // stdout =  new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(p.getOutputStream()));
            
            p.waitFor();
            
// you could do something with any messages that some from javac..
            while ((msg = stdin.readLine()) != null)
               System.out.println(msg);

            while ((emsg = stderr.readLine()) != null) 
                System.out.println(emsg);
                
            p.destroy(); //destroy the process
        } catch(Exception e) { /*handle your errors through NSLog?*/ }

  // figure out where the .java files came from..
  // look in that directory for all the .class files
  // you might want to do some other checking too...dunno.

     class_files = null; //you fix.

        return class_files;
    }

  public void runProgram(String[] cmndArray) {
       //basically the same as above but send this something like:
       // yourArray = { "java", "-cp", "whatever", "YourClass.class" };
       //you'd probably want to exclude "p.destroy()" though..not sure.
    } 
}

I know that's not what you were looking for but it would let you customize it so you can do it all through one app. I used to do exactly what you do in OS9 too. It would be nice to have something equally efficient for testing code in OSX.

Maybe I'll take this on. Looks like it could be fun.

[DaGuy]

Hey, thanks a bunch! That is indeed a very useful class. I will begin thinking about implementing it (or some variation of it) in a tool that supports drag -and-drop java compiling.

And you are right, creating such tool does sound like a fun project . For that one, I'll probably use Project Builder, pretty ironic, ah?

Best,
-FB




------------------

[IamBob]

Just a tad ironic.

If you want some help with that I'd be more than willing.

I've done a bit of Java and Obj-C stuff. Nicer and Xk respectively. I'm working on a Nicer port to Obj-C right now but I still have to have something to escape to.

If you'd like you can reach me at ryanstevens@mac.com

[absmiths]

This isn't what you are asking for, but I use Ant (from the jakarta project). It is an excellent make-like tool written in Java and very easy to configure. In fact, my project structures are very complex, and I mostly just use Project Builder as a source editor, but the entire compile/build cycle is too complex for PB and Ant handles it just fine.

[DaGuy]

Excellent offer, I will keep it very much in mind.

Thanks for your help,
-Francisco Bido

PS: I am at bido@mac.com

[absmiths]

Be careful with code like the above, namely:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmdArray);
stdin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
stderr = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader (p.getErrorStream()));
p.waitFor();

This code can lead to deadlocks. The stream between The external process and the calling process has a fixed-length buffer, and once it fills up both processes will deadlock.

Also, you can create an instance of the java compiler yourself. The only caveat is that you can't use it twice since it stores static data about the classpath, etc.

[DaGuy]

That is interesting... I will be careful with that issue.

absmith also mentioned creating an instance of the compiler itself. I have not seen that before, how is it implemented?

Thanks,
-FB



------------------