llvm dev - Nov 2010 - [LLVMdev] Converting C++ to Java

Hi

 

We want to use our existing engine sourcecode to build Java applications.
Our core engine is written in C/C++ and has hooks to platform specific
functions which we have filled in for lots of platforms so far, PC, DS, PS2,
PSP, XBOX, IPHONE etc. All of which can use C/C++ as their compiler. However
now we want to target Android platforms, so we are looking into converting
the main body of code automatically into Java. This means as we add code to
the main engine, we don't have to keep adding Java code - w would like to
just convert it automatically. We have looked at converter software, but
even the "best" won't touch pointer arithmetic. We don't use
this
excessively, but certain parts of the engine do use it for streaming data,
building variable length lists, etc, and we also have internal memory
allocation code which "grabs" a large area of memory at the start,
then
casts parts of it to all sorts of different structures.

 

Is it going to be possible to use LLVM to convert our platform agnostic
engine code to Java, then link in the "hook" functions entirely
written in
Java. These functions do things such as "read data from file",
"play sound
effect", "draw triangle".

 

 

Thanks, looking forward to your replies !

 

 

Shaun Southern

Team 3 Games Ltd

 

 

 

 

 

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On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 4:06 AM, Shaun Southern <shaun at
team3games.com>wrote:
> Hi
>
>
>
> We want to use our existing engine sourcecode to build Java applications.
> Our core engine is written in C/C++ and has hooks to platform specific
> functions which we have filled in for lots of platforms so far, PC, DS,
PS2,
> PSP, XBOX, IPHONE etc. All of which can use C/C++ as their compiler.
However
> now we want to target Android platforms, so we are looking into converting
> the main body of code automatically into Java. This means as we add code to
> the main engine, we don’t have to keep adding Java code – w would like to
> just convert it automatically. We have looked at converter software, but
> even the “best” won’t touch pointer arithmetic. We don’t use this
> excessively, but certain parts of the engine do use it for streaming data,
> building variable length lists, etc, and we also have internal memory
> allocation code which “grabs” a large area of memory at the start, then
> casts parts of it to all sorts of different structures.
>
>
>
Emitting Dalvik byte-code (Android does not use standard Java byte-code)
would require a new target back-end in LLVM.

The question I have is:  why port everything to Dalvik byte-code?  You can
use the Android NDK to compile native C/C++ and just write your "hook"
functions in Java with an appropriate JNI interface.  This seems like it
would save a lot of time!

To get full C++ support including STL, exceptions, and RTTI, look at
Crystax's build of the NDK:  http://www.crystax.net/

> Is it going to be possible to use LLVM to convert our platform agnostic
> engine code to Java, then link in the “hook” functions entirely written in
> Java. These functions do things such as “read data from file”, “play sound
> effect”, “draw triangle”.
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks, looking forward to your replies !
>
>
>
>
>
> Shaun Southern
>
> Team 3 Games Ltd
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
>
>

-- 

Thanks,

Justin Holewinski
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