Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

[Jansen Guido, CH]

Hello, sorry to bother you with a probably silly question but the web pages you offer are really TOUGH to see through if you "just" want to try something with GCJ.

My team is working on a big applet to display a lot of graphics as one step in the workflow of a web application, so a lot of server communication involved, too.

I have tried using the JET compiler and was successful, but now the size of the native-compiled applet code is a big issue. So I was ordered to investigate further if GCJ could be an alternative.
A few months ago when I started this task, I stopped investigating GCJ because your pages seem to say "not much AWT support and no SWING support yet".

Now my question before I dig deeper into GCC and GCJ is: Is this statement true? Will I get problems displaying AWT dialog elements and java-2D drawings in a GCJ-generated executable?
If so, what is the time frame when those tasks will be addressed in depth?

And can you say something about how big an exe would result from a 700KB jar-File with java-classes, i.e. all in all (compiled JDK needed? That is the biggest bunch in the JET results), approximately?

Thanks in advance for an answer, I hope I bother you not too much, I very much appreciate the effort that you and others to to open source software, I wish I could spend some of my time on such projects, too.

Kind Regards
Guido Jansen

Software Developer
Audatex Systems GmbH
Zollstrasse 62, CH-8021 Zürich
Tel: +41 (0)44 278 85 97
mailto:guido.jansen@audatex.ch
http://www.audatex.com

Re: Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

[Andreas Tobler]

Hoi Guido,

Jansen Guido, CH wrote:
> Hello, sorry to bother you with a probably silly question but the web pages you offer are really TOUGH to see through if you "just" want to try something with GCJ.

Well, the gcj page is kind of out-of-date. So no wonder :)

> My team is working on a big applet to display a lot of graphics as one step in the workflow of a web application, so a lot of server communication involved, too.
> 
> I have tried using the JET compiler and was successful, but now the size of the native-compiled applet code is a big issue. So I was ordered to investigate further if GCJ could be an alternative.
> A few months ago when I started this task, I stopped investigating GCJ because your pages seem to say "not much AWT support and no SWING support yet".
> 

Gcj uses GNU/classpath. So have a look there about the AWT / SWING support.

http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/
http://developer.classpath.org/

We step usually a month or so behind the latest classpath improvments. 
This is at least on gcc head. On gcc-head we have currently classpath 
0.90. On gcc-4.1-branch, 0.20.

> Now my question before I dig deeper into GCC and GCJ is: Is this statement true? Will I get problems displaying AWT dialog elements and java-2D drawings in a GCJ-generated executable?
> If so, what is the time frame when those tasks will be addressed in depth?

AWT should be fine, on the 2D front we're currently under heavy development.

> 
> And can you say something about how big an exe would result from a 700KB jar-File with java-classes, i.e. all in all (compiled JDK needed? That is the biggest bunch in the JET results), approximately?
> 

Hm, no clue.

> Thanks in advance for an answer, I hope I bother you not too much, I very much appreciate the effort that you and others to to open source software, I wish I could spend some of my time on such projects, too.

Further info you'll get on java@gcc.gnu.org or classpath@gnu.org.


Andreas

Re: Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

[Andrew Haley]

Jansen Guido, CH writes:

 > Hello, sorry to bother you with a probably silly question but the
 > web pages you offer are really TOUGH to see through if you "just"
 > want to try something with GCJ.
 > 
 > My team is working on a big applet to display a lot of graphics as
 > one step in the workflow of a web application, so a lot of server
 > communication involved, too.
 > 
 > I have tried using the JET compiler and was successful, but now the
 > size of the native-compiled applet code is a big issue. So I was
 > ordered to investigate further if GCJ could be an alternative.  A
 > few months ago when I started this task, I stopped investigating
 > GCJ because your pages seem to say "not much AWT support and no
 > SWING support yet".
 > 
 > Now my question before I dig deeper into GCC and GCJ is: Is this
 > statement true? Will I get problems displaying AWT dialog elements
 > and java-2D drawings in a GCJ-generated executable?  If so, what is
 > the time frame when those tasks will be addressed in depth?
 > 
 > And can you say something about how big an exe would result from a
 > 700KB jar-File with java-classes, i.e. all in all (compiled JDK
 > needed? That is the biggest bunch in the JET results),
 > approximately?
 > 
 > Thanks in advance for an answer, I hope I bother you not too much,
 > I very much appreciate the effort that you and others to to open
 > source software, I wish I could spend some of my time on such
 > projects, too.
 > 
 > Kind Regards
 > Guido Jansen
 > 
 > Software Developer
 > Audatex Systems GmbH
 > Zollstrasse 62, CH-8021 Zürich
 > Tel: +41 (0)44 278 85 97
 > mailto:guido.jansen@audatex.ch
 > http://www.audatex.com
 > 

Re: Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

[Andrew Haley]

Jansen Guido, CH writes:

 > Hello, sorry to bother you with a probably silly question but the
 > web pages you offer are really TOUGH to see through if you "just"
 > want to try something with GCJ.
 > 
 > My team is working on a big applet to display a lot of graphics as
 > one step in the workflow of a web application, so a lot of server
 > communication involved, too.
 > 
 > I have tried using the JET compiler and was successful, but now the
 > size of the native-compiled applet code is a big issue. So I was
 > ordered to investigate further if GCJ could be an alternative.  A
 > few months ago when I started this task, I stopped investigating
 > GCJ because your pages seem to say "not much AWT support and no
 > SWING support yet".

Tom Fitzsimmons has alread replied regarding Swing and AWT, and it's a
much better story than previously reported.

 > Now my question before I dig deeper into GCC and GCJ is: Is this
 > statement true? Will I get problems displaying AWT dialog elements
 > and java-2D drawings in a GCJ-generated executable?  If so, what is
 > the time frame when those tasks will be addressed in depth?
 > 
 > And can you say something about how big an exe would result from a
 > 700KB jar-File with java-classes, i.e. all in all (compiled JDK
 > needed? That is the biggest bunch in the JET results),
 > approximately?

It's going to be big.  The size of compiled Java is, in the main, due
to the definition of the language and not to any particular
implementation.  .jar files are an extremely compact representation of
compiled code, and therefore you can reasonably expect precompilation
to expand the size severalfold.

A representative example for gcj is:

-rw-r--r-- 1 jonas jonas 1.7M Apr 19 19:10 /var/lib/jonas/lib/commons/jonas/ow_jonas.jar
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7.7M Apr 19 20:42 /usr/lib64/gcj/jonas/ow_jonas.jar.so

A 32-bit prcompiled version of this library might be a little smaller.

Andrew.

Re: Java AWT and Swing support of GCJ

[Thomas Fitzsimmons]

> Hello, sorry to bother you with a probably silly question but the web pages you offer are really TOUGH to see through if you "just" want to try something with GCJ.
> 
> My team is working on a big applet to display a lot of graphics as one step in the workflow of a web application, so a lot of server communication involved, too.
> 
> I have tried using the JET compiler and was successful, but now the size of the native-compiled applet code is a big issue. So I was ordered to investigate further if GCJ could be an alternative.
> A few months ago when I started this task, I stopped investigating GCJ because your pages seem to say "not much AWT support and no SWING support yet".

Yes, I'll make sure this page is updated to more accurately reflect our 
current status.

> 
> Now my question before I dig deeper into GCC and GCJ is: Is this statement true? Will I get problems displaying AWT dialog elements and java-2D drawings in a GCJ-generated executable?
> If so, what is the time frame when those tasks will be addressed in depth?

The AWT on the GTK peer set is done.  Java2D is currently under heavy 
development.  It should be done in the next three-to-six months.

Tom