CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaruntimetools.jar
Dipmedeep
Dipmedeep

Reputation: 135

Java compiler at Runtime

In my current project, I need to compile java code at runtime (in the background to process input from the user). This works fine with tools.jar in the classpath. However, not all users of my program have JDK installed on their system. Some of them only have JRE and in that case there is no java compiler available at runtime. I can solve that problem by including tools.jar from Sun as a part of my tool.

But tools.jar is very big (>12 MB). The problem is that I have to include the large jar file, although I am interested only in a small fraction of the functionality provided by this jar.

  1. Is it possible to break up the tools.jar file so that I have a small subset of classes that are required for compiling java code only?

  2. Is this illegal?

Thanks a lot.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 2091

Answers (6)

josefx
josefx

Reputation: 15656

The Eclipse compiler is only 1.6 MB and should work without Eclipse. You can download it here. Also it looks like it implements the JavaCompiler API.

It is licensed under the Eclipse public license so including it in your own application should be no problem.

Upvotes: 3

Jay Askren
Jay Askren

Reputation: 10444

Instead of compiling code at runtime, I would rewrite the code in a scripting language and use the scripting framework. There's no need then for the jdk and there are no legal issues to get around. Then you also have many choices of languages to use such as Beanshell, JavaScript, or jython.

Upvotes: 1

TheLQ
TheLQ

Reputation: 15008

Probably a better question is why?

If you need to do dynamic math calculations, then consider JEval. If you need people to write simple plugins, consider some of the dynamic languages like Javascript or Python that @Jay mentioned.

For anything else, you should require that your user download the JDK, since thats what writing Java requires. It would be hard to find a good reason why you would want to embed a compiler into your program

Upvotes: 1

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

Reputation: 75346

You may want to have a look at the Javassist library which contains a snippet compiler suitable for creating a method to do a calculation and then using that method.

Which one is most suitable depends on your actual needs - especially how frequently you need to do this.

Upvotes: 0

YoK
YoK

Reputation: 14505

I don't think it would be possible to breakup tools.jar, And also it should not be legal to include tools.jar.

Check http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5161541

You could look for some 3rd party Java Compiler and change your code to use same.

But I don't know exact code for compiling using these.

Upvotes: 1

secmask
secmask

Reputation: 8107

do you want something like java-scripting like BeanShell? It help run java code without compile them.

Upvotes: 0

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