inline-java: Call any JVM function from Haskell

NOTE: you’ll need GHC >= 8.0.2 to compile and use this package. Use

stack --nix build

ahead of a new GHC release to build using GHC 8.0.2-rc2.

The Haskell standard includes a native foreign function interface (FFI). Using it can be a bit involved and only C support is implemented in GHC. inline-java lets you call any JVM function directly, from Haskell, without the need to write your own foreign import declarations using the FFI. In the style of inline-c for C and inline-r for calling R, inline-java lets you name any function to call inline in your code. It is implemented on top of the jni and jvm packages.

Example

Graphical Hello World using Java Swing:

{-# LANGUAGE DataKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE QuasiQuotes #-}
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
module Main where

import Data.Int
import Data.Text (Text)
import Language.Java
import Language.Java.Inline

main :: IO Int32
main = withJVM [] $ do
    -- Extra type annotation workaround for current GHC HEAD.
    message :: J ('Class "java.lang.String") <- reflect ("Hello World!" :: Text)
    [java| { javax.swing.JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, $message);
             return 0; } |]

Building it

Requirements:

• the Stack build tool (version 1.2 or above);
• either, the Nix package manager,
• or, OpenJDK, Gradle and Spark (version 1.6) installed from your distro.

On OS X, you’ll need to install the Legacy Java SE 6 runtime when prompted, even when using Nix.

To build:

$ stack build

You can optionally get Stack to download a JDK in a local sandbox (using Nix) for good build results reproducibility. This is the recommended way to build inline-java. Alternatively, you’ll need it installed through your OS distribution’s package manager for the next steps (and you’ll need to tell Stack how to find the JVM header files and shared libraries).

To use Nix, set the following in your ~/.stack/config.yaml (or pass --nix to all Stack commands, see the Stack manual for more):

nix:
  enable: true

License

Copyright (c) 2015-2016 EURL Tweag.

All rights reserved.

inline-java is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.

About

inline-java is maintained by Tweag I/O.

Have questions? Need help? Tweet at @tweagio.