Re:C Isn't a Programming Language Anymore
by cryptonector on Monday November 07, 2022 @05:37PM
(#33513536)
JNI is very much a C ABI, yes. I should know, for I've written JNI FFIs more than once. Yes, you can also write JNIs in C++, but you don't have to because JNI's ABI is C not C++, and that is because C++ ABIs were not stable decades ago when JNI was written.
Re:C Isn't a Programming Language Anymore
by pjmlp on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @02:41AM
(#33516846)
JNI isn't a C ABI from the point of view what is being discussed here, it is a marshaling library.
You don't do OS syscalls via JNI, rather marshal representation of Java objects for consuptiom from native languages.
Re:C Isn't a Programming Language Anymore
by cryptonector on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @10:06AM
(#33519772)
You clearly haven't written a JNI.
JNI is an API between the JVM and C- or C++-coded plugins that can implement native methods. "Native method" means "written in C (or C++)". There's a) a standard interface that C-coded methods must present (depending on their Java signature) and b) a set of utility C functions provided by the JVM.
Because these plugins are loaded via `dlopen()`/`LoadLibrary_Ex()`/etc. the JNI API has an ABI.
If you don't believe me go look it up. There's a ton of resources on JNI. Here's an example taken from the wikipedia page on JNI:
extern "C"
JNIEXPORT void JNICALL Java_ClassName_MethodName
(JNIEnv *env, jobject obj, jstring javaString)
{
const char *nativeString = env->GetStringUTFChars(javaString, 0);
//Do something with the nativeString
env->ReleaseStringUTFChars(javaString, nativeString);
}
Android userspace uses Java and can only talk to native code via JNI, which definitely isn't a C ABI.
Likewise there isn't any writing to metal on ChromeOS for the official userspace APIs, running Linux (Crostini) implies running a sandboxed version on top of the actual ChromeOS, while Android on ChromeOS not only has the same JNI restrictions, it also is sandboxed without access to host OS.
EDIT: I also forgot that ChromeOS and Android expose many of their key APIs to native code via OS IPC, on top of the constraints mentioned above. With endpoints written in a mix of C++, Java and now Rust.