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Gradle Jextract Plugin 1.1.0

Introduction

This plugin enables developing Java code that makes use of native libraries using the new Foreign Function & Memory API.

  • FFM API can be considered as a more modern and secure alternative to JNI for native access in Java.
  • The FFM-related Jextract tool reads C header files and generates Java bindings for statically typed native access. These are Java classes to be used in a Java project.
  • This Gradle plugin runs Jextract on your header files and makes the generated bindings available for your source code.

Features

Section titled “Features”

Requirements

Section titled “Requirements”

This plugin was created to get rid of a local Jextract installation requirement and to retain the “Clone&Build” Gradle experience. All you need is at least JVM 17 and your project should use at least Gradle v8.8.

  • Downloads Jextract for the current build platform and architecture, no additional installation steps are needed.
  • Preset conventions for Jextract versions 19 up to 25.
  • Download locations can be customized for more restrictive environments.
  • Alternately, use a local installation of Jextract.

Library configuration

Section titled “Library configuration”

All features are configurable via script DSL extension. So importing and configuring tasks directly is not necessary.

  • Configure as many libs as needed.
  • Customize the output path for each lib
  • Add the generated code to any Java source sets.
  • Filter which symbols in your lib should be included, via DSL or arg file.
  • Dump all includes into an arg file for further usage and filtering.

Gradle

Section titled “Gradle”

The plugin is committed to follow Gradle’s best practices.