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https://github.com/mapbox/jni.hpp

A modern, type-safe, header-only, C++14 wrapper for JNI
https://github.com/mapbox/jni.hpp

binding cpp14 java jni ndk template type-safety wrapper

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A modern, type-safe, header-only, C++14 wrapper for JNI

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README 

        
jni.hpp is a modern, type-safe, header-only, C++14  wrapper for [JNI (Java Native Interface)](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jni/). Its aim is to make calling Java from C++, or C++ from Java, convenient and safe, without sacrificing low-level control, as you commonly do with code generation approaches.



Two levels of wrappers are provided.



## Low-level wrappers



The low-level wrappers match JNI, type-for-type and function-for-function, with modern C++ equivalents in a `jni` namespace. The matching uniformly follows a set of rules.



**Rules for Names**

* Everything in jni.hpp is in the `jni` namespace.

* When a name exists in JNI, the same name is used in the namespace.

* When the original name is a macro, a lowercase name is used instead, e.g. `jni::jni_ok` for `JNI_OK`.



**Rules for Types**

* Types corresponding to Java primitive types (`jni::jboolean`, `jni::jint`, `jni::jdouble`, etc.) are matched unchanged.

* Types corresponding to Java reference types (`jni::jobject`, `jni::jclass`, `jni::jarray`, etc.) are  non-copyable and non-constructible. Their references and pointers automatically convert to base types as expected. (These types do not hide pointer-ness behind a confusing typedef, like the underlying JNI headers do.)

* `jni::jsize` is `std::size_t`, not a signed integer. jni.hpp checks for overflow in the necessary places.

* Ownership types are instantiations of `unique_ptr`, and `using` declarations are provided for each specific instantiation, e.g. `jni::UniqueGlobalRef`.

* Families of functions, such as `Call*Method` and `CallStatic*Method`, are matched with a single template function, such as `jni::CallMethod` and `jni::CallStaticMethod`.

* `jni::jvalue` and the `Call*MethodV` and `Call*MethodA` function families are made redundant by type safety, and omitted.



**Rules for Parameters and Results**

* Parameters are passed, and results returned, by value or reference, not by pointer. An exception is made for possibly-null `jni::jobject` parameters and results, which _are_ pointers.

* When transferring ownership out of a function, the return type is an ownership type.

* When transferring ownership into a function, the parameter type is an ownership type.

* Output parameters are returned, not passed as pointer-to-pointer. When there are multiple outputs, they are returned as a `std::tuple`.

* Whenever a function receives paired "pointer to `T` and length" parameters, an overload is provided that accepts a statically-sized array, `std::array`, `std::vector`, or (if `T` is a character type) `std::basic_string` argument. These overloads compute the length automatically.

* In string-related functions, `char16_t` replaces `jchar`.



**Rules for Error Handling**



* Errors are thrown, not returned or otherwise left to be explicitly checked.

* Pending Java exceptions are checked after every JNI call that may produce a pending Java exception, and thrown as `jni::PendingJavaException`.

* [Invocation API](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jni/spec/invocation.html#wp9502) errors are thrown as `std::system_error`s containing `std::error_code`s with a custom category.



## High-level wrappers



The high-level wrappers provide additional syntactic convenience and type safety when working with non-primitive Java types. They are built around the concept of _class tags_. A class tag is a C++ type that provides a static `Name` method returning a fully-qualified Java class name, thus associating a unique C++ type with the corresponding Java class. For example:



```C++

struct Math { static constexpr auto Name() { return "java/lang/Math"; } };

```



The high-level wrappers consist of a set of classes templated on class tag:



* `jni::Class`, a wrapper for a reference to the Java class associated with the tag.

* `jni::Object`, a wrapper for a (possibly-null) reference to an instance of the Java class associated with the tag.

* `jni::Array`, a wrapper for a (possibly-null) reference to a Java array. The element type `E` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.

* `jni::Constructor`, a wrapper for a constructor for the the Java class associated with the tag. The result type `R` and each argument type in `Args` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.

* `jni::Method`, a wrapper for an instance method of the Java class associated with the tag. The result type `R` and each argument type in `Args` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.

* `jni::StaticMethod`, a wrapper for a static method of the Java class associated with the tag. The result type `R` and each argument type in `Args` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.

* `jni::Field`, a wrapper for an instance field of the Java class associated with the tag, and providing `Get` and `Set` methods. The field type `T` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.

* `jni::StaticField`, a wrapper for a static field of the Java class associated with the tag, and providing `Get` and `Set` methods. The field type `T` is a jni.hpp primitive type or `Object`.



## Method Registration



Registering native methods is a central part of JNI, and jni.hpp provides several features that make this task safer and more convenient. The jni.hpp wrapper method `jni::RegisterNatives` has the following signature:



```C++

template < class... Methods >

void RegisterNatives(jni::JNIEnv& env, jni::jclass&, const Methods&... methods);

```



In other words, rather than receiving a length and pointer to an array of `JNIMethod`s, it takes a variable number of variable types. This allows `jni::RegisterNatives` to type check the methods, ensuring that their type signatures are valid for JNI.



Use the helper function `jni::MakeNativeMethod` to construct method arguments for `jni::RegisterNatives`. `jni::MakeNativeMethod` wraps your method in a `try` / `catch` block that translates C++ exceptions to Java exceptions. It is overloaded on the following combinations of arguments:



* A `const char *` name, `const char *` signature, and lambda. The type of the first parameter of the lambda must be `jni::JNIEnv&`. The type of the second parameter must be either `jni::jclass*` (for a native static method) or `jni::jobject*` (for a native instance method). The result type must be a JNI primitive type or type convertable to `jni::jobject*`. (These requirements are type checked.)

* A `const char *` name, `const char *` signature, and function pointer. The function has the same  parameter and return type requirements as the lambda. In order to guarantee a unique exception-handling wrapper for each unique function pointer, the function pointer must be provided as a _template parameter_ rather than method parameter:



 ```C++

 jni::MakeNativeMethod(name, signature)

 ```



 The repetition of `myFunction` with `decltype` is necessary because it is not possible to infer the function type from the non-type template parameter. You may wish to define and use a macro to avoid the repetition.

* A `const char *` name and lamba whose parameter and return types use high-level jni.hpp wrapper types. In this case, jni.hpp will compute the signature automatically.

* A `const char *` name and function pointer whose parameter and return types use high-level jni.hpp wrapper types. Again, jni.hpp will compute the signature automatically, and again, the function pointer must be provided as a template parameter rather than method parameter.



Finally, jni.hpp provides a mechanism for registering a "native peer": a long-lived native object corresponding to a Java object, usually created when the Java object is created and destroyed when the Java object's finalizer runs. Between creation and finalization, a pointer to the native peer is stored in a `long` field on the Java object. jni.hpp will take care of wrapping lambdas, function pointers, or member function pointers with code that automatically gets the value of this field, casts it to a pointer to the peer, and calls the member function (or passes a reference to the peer as an argument to the lambda or function pointer). See the example code for details.



## Example code



Example code for both the low-level and high-level wrappers is provided in [the `examples` subdirectory](https://github.com/mapbox/jni.hpp/tree/master/examples). This code shows the use of jni.hpp for:



* Registering native methods such that they can be called from Java.

* Calling back into Java methods from native methods.

* Native peer registration.



## Prior art



* Many code generation approaches. SWIG, [JavaCPP](https://github.com/bytedeco/javacpp), and so on. But jni.hpp is explicitly not a binding  generator.

* [JniHelpers](https://github.com/spotify/JniHelpers) is similar in spirit. In comparison, jni.hpp takes advantage of modern C++ features such as `unique_ptr` and variadic templates, introduces no preprocessor macros, and is header-only -- no build step required.

* I hear that Boost.Python is similar, but I did not reference it in building this library.

* The low-level wrapping strategy is inspired by [Lisa Lippincott's presentation "How to call C libraries from C++"](https://github.com/jfirebaugh/PlusPlus) from Cppcon 2014, and by her previous work ["The Nitrogen Manifesto"](http://nitric.sourceforge.net/The%20Nitrogen%20Manifesto.pdf). However jni.hpp does not use "PlusPlus", the wrapping library abstraction mentioned in the presentation; I found it to be a poor economy compared to simply writing out the wrappers manually.