JWin32
A Project Panama-based mapping + wrapper generator for win32 headers.
IMPORTANT
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As of 0.5.0, no prebuilt jars will be provided. You must generate the mappings yourself.
This is due to the new modular header system, which makes it impractical to include prebuilt jars for every combination.
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Now accepting pull requests for implementing function macros. Jextract cannot extract these, so it requires manual labor. See the Macros file for examples.
Table of Contents
- Disclaimer
- What is Project Panama
- Dependencies
- Selecting libraries
- Generating mappings, wrappers and jar
- Running code with panama
- Linking libraries
- What next?
- Inspiration
- Detailed description of the postprocessor
- Changelog
0. Disclaimer
This project is not endorsed by nor affiliated with either Microsoft, Oracle, nor the OpenJDK project.
MSVC, Windows.h, d3d11.h and the Windows SDK are owned by Microsoft, and due to licensing issues, are not included as a part of this source code.
The project source code does not include generated and mapped files because there's a lot of files (more than 10k after every class is generated)
Libraries with builtin support:
- windows.h and most of the stuff it pulls in
- direct3d 9-12
- dxgi
I'm considering adding more libraries as "supported by default", such as DirectAudio, Direct2D, etc (basically the entire DirectX collection), as well as later expanding into non-win32 space, such as GLFW and OpenGL (only planned once panama comes out of incubator and becomes an experimental/stable feature usable in mainline releases). During the incubator phase, this project will be limited to windows libraries.
Any other libraries are currently unverified and may break. The built-in COM support is only verified with Direct3D COM objects, and may break when used with the actual COM system. More precisely, RuntimeClass GUIDs and Interface GUIDs cannot be retrieved during runtime, and MUST be specified either using #define constants, or using the GUID_J class. There's no way around this limitation at this time.
1. What is Project Panama
Java's project panama is an incubating feature of java, only accessible on a specific branch, is a brand-new solution that gets rid of writing JNI or JNA wrappers for native libraries, and instead almost completely automates the process, or hides it behind neat and efficient wrapper classes.
- Project Panama: https://openjdk.java.net/projects/panama/
- Project Panama Builds: https://jdk.java.net/panama/
Important reading before experimenting:
- handling native memory: https://github.com/openjdk/panama-foreign/blob/foreign-jextract/doc/panama_memaccess.md
- handling native functions: https://github.com/openjdk/panama-foreign/blob/foreign-jextract/doc/panama_ffi.md
2. Dependencies
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(Optional) Installing the Windows developer VM.
There's a possibility of jextract failing due to a nonstandard system setup. In this case, you need to do the jextract phase inside the Windows 10 developer VM, or if you don't want to install the Windows sdk on your host OS. You still need the panama jdk on your host to run the rest of the steps.
- You need either VMWare, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, or Parallels. If you haven't installed one of those yet, VirtualBox is the recommended option, as it was the only one tested with this project: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
- Download the Windows 10 developer VM image for you virtual machine: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/
- (VirtualBox only) Extract the WinDev....Eval.ova file from the archive you downloaded, inside VirtualBox, click on
Import, select the ova file in theFilebox, clicknext, thenImport. After that, virtualbox will begin importing the image. - Start the developer virtual machine, download this repository inside it, then proceed with the following steps.
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Project Panama
If you're using the VM, you still need to install this both on the host and the VM.
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Download and extract JDK-panama from this URL: https://jdk.java.net/panama
(The latest version at the time of writing is
17-panama+3-167) -
Next, you have to replace your currently installed java with Panama in the PATH and JAVA_HOME system variables:
Inside PATH, replace your current java path with, or, if you don't have one, add:
<Directory where you extracted panama>\jdk-17-panama\binSet JAVA_HOME to:
<Directory where you extracted panama>\jdk-17-panama -
To verify that panama has been added to PATH properly, open a command prompt, and type
java - version. The first output line should start withopenjdk version "17-panama". -
Also enter
jextract -versioninto the same command prompt. If the output starts withWARNING: Using incubator modules: jdk.incubator.foreign, jdk.incubator.jextract, panama is correctly installed.
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Maven (optional if your IDE doesn't have it, or you don't use and IDE)
Note: You only need this on your host system, not inside the VM.
- Download and extract maven from this URL: https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi
- Add the maven bin directory to your PATH:
<Directory where you extracted maven>\bin - To verify that maven has been added to PATH properly, open a command prompt, and type
mvn -version. - If the output starts with
Apache Maven, maven is correctly installed.
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Windows SDK
After you've installed project panama, you also need the header files that are then passed to jextract. If you're using the VM for the jextract step, you don't need the SDK on your host system, only on the VM.
If you already have Visual Studio installed with Windows SDK (default if you checked
Desktop development with C++when installing VS), you can skip this dependency.Otherwise, you either have to install Visual Studio with the
Desktop development with C++workload.If you don't have VS installed yet:
- Go to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
- Scroll down to Visual Studio 2019
- Under Community, click the
Free downloadbutton. - Start the installer, and follow the instructions until you reach the workload selection screen.
If you already have VS installed, just type visual studio installer in the start menu search and launch it. Then, click Modify to enter the workload selection menu.
The following steps are the same for both:
- Select the
Desktop development with C++workload - Click install and wait until it finishes (Approximately 2 GB download size, 8 GB on disk. Less if visual studio is already installed)
At this point, restart your system to make sure that every program has the correct system variables available. (when running the VM, only restart the VM).
3. Selecting libraries to be made available in java
First off, go into the c directory, and open the native.h file. In this file you can configure what you want to include.
Currently, you can select the following:
- Windows.h configurations using
#define NO...defines. - Direct3D version. You can choose any combination of directx 9, 10, 11, or 12. You can also choose none of them.
- DXGI
4. Generating mappings, wrappers and jar
After 0.5.0, the build script was unified, and the entire process is now done in one go.
The build_install.bat script installs the compiled jar files into the local maven repository.
The build_package.bat script outputs the compiled jar files into the target directory.
You can safely ignore errors that match one of these examples:
WARNING: Using incubator modules: jdk.incubator.jextract, jdk.incubator.foreignWARNING: Layout size not available for ...WARNING: skipping ... because of unsupported type usage: long ...
You can check the full list of all known non-issue warnings in JEXTRACT_WARNINGS.txt
If you see any other kinds of errors, go back to the dependency setup step, download the Windows 10 developer virtual machine, and redo the setup inside it. If it fails in the virtual machine too, only then should you create a new issue concerning this step.
The wrapper classes simplify interaction with structs and COM objects, and also turn many #defines into public static final variables, which can then be used in switch statements (jextract puts #defines into getter methods, which cannot be used with switch statements).
To do this, simply run one of the build_ batch files and wait until it finishes.
Wrapper classes are just the original struct/COM interface name with a _J suffix.
Wrapper code is placed in the win32.mapped package, more precisely, structs get put in win32.mapped.struct, COM interfaces in win32.mapped.com, and #defined constants in the win32.mapped.constants.Constants class.
5. Running code with panama
By default, foreign (native) access, even in Project Panama, is blocked. To solve this, you have to provide the following command line arguments to java when running programs that contain panama code: -Dforeign.restricted=permit --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED --add-modules jdk.incubator.foreign
You can inspect this project's pom.xml to see how to do that with maven.
6. Linking libraries
Panama does NOT link code by default, so for any external libraries that you want to use, you first need to load the appropriate libraries.
For that you need to use java's built-in System.loadLibrary(...); call. In short: You either have to have the dll/so file in PATH, or in the working directory, and invoke System.loadLibrary(<library>);, where <library> is the library's filename without the .so/.dll extension.
Win32 specific info:
To figure out which libraries you need for win32 functions, look up the function on MSDN (msdn is well indexed by most web search engines, it's enough if you type msdn FunctionName in your preferred search engine, and the first search result will usually get you there), scroll to the bottom, and under the Requirements header, you can find the library in the DLL row.
With panama there are no function-style defines, so you need to use either the narrow (A) or wide(W) character-based functions. I recommend the narrow versions, as they map nicely to UTF-8 strings.
Common example: You want to create a win32 window. For that you need the WNDCLASSEXA struct (library independent), retrieved with GetModuleHandleA, and the CreateWindowExA function. These two functions are implemented in:
GetModuleHandleA: Kernel32.dll
CreateWindowExA: User32.dll
So, before calling any of these, preferably right at the start of your main function, or better yet, in a static{} block in your startup class, you would load those libraries like this:
System.loadLibrary("Kernel32");
System.loadLibrary("User32");
Note the lack of file extensions.
7. What next?
Over the course of the next few months I will continue polishing the generator code and add more quality of life wrappers.
Goals:
- Create wrapper code for structs inside structs
- Create wrapper code for arrays inside structs
- Create wrapper classes for constant defines
8. Inspiration
I originally came up with this idea after having a small spike of interest in direct3D, but found C++ programming to not be my cup of tea. I wanted to do direct3d stuff in java, but no matter how much I looked, I couldn't find any up-to-date wrapper for direct3d and win32, other than the basic win32 mappings inside LWJGL, which, not surprisingly, don't contain D3D stuff.
Then, I stumbled Project Panama, and after studying it and a few weeks of experiments, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
A bit of lore between MS and Java, I found while researching:
While scouting the web for COM implementations in java, i stumbled upon an article mentioning an abandoned programming language called J++, and lawsuit between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, which eventually lead to the creation of the .NET framework and the C# programming language.
9. Detailed description of the postprocessor
The heart of this project, where most of the magic is done, resides in com/falsepattern.jwin32.internal.
The classes inside this package and it's subpackages are responsible for analyzing the raw jextract mappings, generating COM and struct wrappers, generating special behaviour for specific types, and so on.
The following paragraphs describe the inner workings of the postprocessor, and how it transforms an obtuse harder-than-C API into a semi-usable, Java style mapping.
The first step is file retrieval and filtering. Filtering is required, because some classes have unstable mappings, which immediately crash the JVM when the class is loaded.
Next, the first pass of the conversion is run. This generates the primitive implementations for COM objects, and also finds all of the structs.
Logically identical structs (with the exact same memory layout and naming scheme) get turned into subclasses of an existing root implementation. This avoids duplicate code, and makes these types interoperable through typecasting.
After that, the file list is scanned a second time for any remaining duplicate structs.
With these passes completed, the converter generates getters for nested structs, and at this point, the main code generation step is finished.
At this point, the generated structs and COM objects are complete, and are written to the filesystem.
Next up, the code scans through the file list again, and extracts all primitive constants from the mappings into static final fields, allowing their use in switch statements.
The files are scanned one last time, and any GUID references are replaced with static initializers, if available. This avoids runtime linking errors, as most of these GUIDs are stored in static C libraries and cannot be retrieved with System.loadLibrary().
Finally, the module info for the project is generated, hiding the internal code from the public side.
10. Changelog
[0.5.1] - 2021-12-24
Changed
- GUID getters. This should resolve issues with unresolved symbols when retrieving most (but not all) IID_... MemorySegments.
- Rewrote build script to do everything in one go through maven
[0.5.0] - 2021-12-24
Added
- String and pointer constant extraction
- Internal code encapsulation using project jigsaw's module-info.java system
- Bat files for the compile step
- Static wrapper methods for MemoryUtil singleton's MemoryAllocator
- Copyright notices to all source files and build scripts
- Some basic win32 macros.
- Special logic for GUIDs, for simpler creation of GUID structs used in COM.
- Added DXGI to the config file
Changed
- C headers are now modularized, and can be configured by the user before jextract-ing.
- Reworked guide to make the jextract step reproducible in a vm.
- Moved banned classes list to external file for better editing.
- Separated the cleanup script from the generator.
Removed
- Maven distribution management
- Security vulnerability caused by unicode file encoding. ASCII is now the default.
[0.4.2] - 2021-10-17
Added
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Additional Direct3D headers based on the api docs.
Note: this does not include the C++ interoperability header, as jextract only translates C headers.
- d3d11_1.h
- d3d11_2.h
- d3d11_3.h
- d3d11_4.h
- d3d11sdklayers.h
- d3d11shader.h
- d3d11shadertracing.h
- d3dcommon.h
- d3dcsx.h
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Constant extractor now extracts byte, short, int, long, float, and double constants. String constants are not extracted for now.
Changed
- Constant extractor now also removes the respective getter methods from Win32.java and its superclasses to fix some potential confusion.
[0.4.1] - 2021-10-16
Added
- Javadoc to the memory manipulation classes
Changed
- Fixed some broken logic in
MemoryUtil
Removed
- Testing code in
MemoryStack
[0.4.0] - 2021-10-15
Added
- Memory manipulation helper classes inside
com.falsepattern.jwin32.memory
Changed
- Moved code generation stuff into "internal" class to signal to developers to not use those
- Reworked COM wrappers to use MemoryAddress instead of MemorySegment in the constructor argument, saving some client-side conversion
[0.3.1] - 2021-10-15
Changed
- Now generates less whitespace into wrapper classes
[0.3.0] - 2021-10-15
Added
- Extraction of constants (WM_..., CS_..., etc.)
- They were already available through the pure mappings, however, they were hidden behind getter functions, and thus, you couldn't use them in switch statements. Now you can.
- There's about 27k of them, extracted to
win32.mapped.Constants
[0.2.0] - 2021-10-14
Added
- Automatic fixing for known issues in:
- ID3DInclude
- XMLDOMDocumentEvents
Changed
- Reimplemented struct generator. Nested structs are now supported.
Removed
- The following win32 structs will not have wrappers generated, due to alignment incompatibility:
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_MMIOINFO
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DRVCONFIGINFOEX
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IMAGE_AUX_SYMBOL_TOKEN_DEF
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tagDRVCONFIGINFO
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midihdr_tag
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tagMCI_ANIM_OPEN_PARMSA
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tagMCI_ANIM_OPEN_PARMSW
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tagMCI_ANIM_WINDOW_PARMSA
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tagMCI_ANIM_WINDOW_PARMSW
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tagMCI_BREAK_PARMS
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tagMCI_OPEN_PARMSA
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tagMCI_OPEN_PARMSW
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tagMCI_OVLY_OPEN_PARMSA
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tagMCI_OVLY_OPEN_PARMSW
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tagMCI_OVLY_WINDOW_PARMSA
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tagMCI_OVLY_WINDOW_PARMSW
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tagMCI_WAVE_OPEN_PARMSA
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tagMCI_WAVE_OPEN_PARMSW
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tagMETAHEADER
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tagMIXERLINEA
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tagMIXERLINECONTROLSA
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tagMIXERLINECONTROLSW
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tagMIXERLINEW
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tagBITMAPFILEHEADER
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tMIXERCONTROLDETAILS
including all structs derived from these.
If a struct contains one of these as a sub-struct, that sub-struct will not receive a wrapper field.
-
[0.0.0-0.1.1]
- Extremely early code, no change tracking was done
6 Dec 10, 2022
3 Sep 24, 2022
17 Dec 2, 2022
36 Jan 3, 2023
15 Dec 20, 2022
14 Nov 8, 2022
1 Jan 13, 2022
21 Sep 15, 2022
56 Dec 12, 2022
3 Oct 27, 2021