Interop with non-Java libraries (FFI?)

seandmccarthy · December 24, 2015, 2:11am

In the Interop section of the documentation it talks about calling out to Java libraries (and vice versa), but it’s not clear how interop with other libraries (e.g. C libraries) should be done. JRuby, for example, has an FFI library, thus removing the need to use JNA directly. Will Kotlin provide a similar library?

mikehearn · December 24, 2015, 12:57pm

The JRuby FFI exists to map the Ruby API to JNA, to keep compatibility with existing code. Kotlin doesn’t have a native FFI and so why would you add one just to map it to JNA/JNI/Panama later? You could as well use these things directly.

abreslav · December 25, 2015, 4:12pm

Kotlin supports JNI through the “external” modifier.

Here’s an example (need to replace “native” with “external”):

github.com

ligee/kotlin-ndk-samples/blob/master/hello-jni/src/com/example/hellojni/HelloJni.kt

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2009 The Android Open Source Project
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package com.example.hellojni

import android.app.Activity
import android.widget.TextView
import android.os.Bundle

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Interop with non-Java libraries (FFI?)

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