kaffe-0.8.4.README

April 23 1997



The archive (most likely) will be located at

ftp://ftp.next.peak.org/pub/next/apps/internet/www/java



kaffe-0.8.4.NIS.b.tar.gz:

   Contains Installer.app package of kaffe binary and support files.



This build represents a second attempt by the kaffe authors at true 

dynamic-loading of auxilary java libraries.  While the first version

(0.8.3) didn't work hardly at all, this version, in my limited testing, 

seems to work better.  Your mileage may vary.



I compiled for all nextstep targets supported by kaffe: m68k, i386,

and sparc (hppa is reported as a 'work-in-progress').  

i386 supports a java JIT compiler, and seems to work well.  

m68k supports a java INTERPRETER and didn't work much at all, but I 

included it so that someone else with more knowledge can investigate.  

sparc supports a java INTERPRETER, and is completely untested.





OVERVIEW



kaffe serves as both a java compiler and java interpreter for stand-alone

java applications.  Included is (some) support for graphical java 

appliations (X11) via a freely available alternative awt library,  

biss_awt (v0.87pl7).  Included is Sun's classes.zip and biss_awt's biss.zip.





INSTALLATION



Just install using Installer.app into /usr/local, or where ever

you want.  Then read the included README's and documentation in

src/kaffe-0.8.4/ENVIRONMENT.  

In particular, you'll need to set the environment variables KAFFEHOME 

and CLASSPATH to point to the location of the java class

libraries.  For example, if you installed this package into /usr/local,

then the correct settings (in csh) would be

setenv KAFFEHOME	/usr/local/share/kaffe

setenv CLASSPATH	.:/${KAFFEHOME}/classes.zip: 	\

			{KAFFEHOME}/biss.zip:		\

			{KAFFEHOME}

(The \'s mean to continue onto the next line.  Normally, there shouldn't

be any spaces between the entries in CLASSPATH.  I did it here because the

one line would've been hard to read.).





From the README: (this version does JIT)



KAFFE v0.8.4 - A JIT and interpreting virtual machine to run Java(tm)* code

===========================================================================



This is Kaffe, a virtual machine design to execute Java bytecode.

This machine can be configured in two modes.  In one mode it operates as

a pure bytecode interpreter (not unlike Javasoft's machine); in the second

mode if performs "just-in-time" code conversion from the abstract code to

the host machine's native code.  This will ultimately allow execution of

Java code at the same speed as standard compiled code but while maintaining

the advantages and flexibility of code independence.



What's new

==========

 * This is a bug fix release (see Changelog)

 NB. Various patches to support new platforms and compilers have been

     submitted recently.  These will appear in 0.9.0.





What is BISS-AWT, v0.87

----------------



The BISS-AWT java framework is a framework of about 150 Java classes for

building graphical applications with state-of-the-art user interfaces.

Instead of following the "OS-native" look-and-feel (like Suns java.awt),

it implements its own "Java-native" look-and-feel. The framework can be

extended without the need to write native libraries. It has nice things

like pop-up menus, notebooks, hierarchical Lists etc. without the need for a

JDK 1.1 compliant native lib.





NOTES

Building kaffe yourself



Here are the steps I followed to build this version of kaffe:

1.  setenv CC 'cc -traditional-cpp'

This is required if you have gcc installed on your system.  The 

dynamic-library version of kaffe will build only with NeXT's cc.

3.  make

4.  make install





CREDITS



Package Creation

Rex Dieter <rdieter@math.unl.edu>

Computer System Manager 

Universtity of Nebraska-Lincoln  

Department of Mathematics and Statistics 

http://www.math.unl.edu/~rdieter/



kaffe: 

http://www.kaffe.org/



biss_awt:

http://www.biss-net.com/biss-awt.html



sawt: (Another alternative AWT)

http://slhp1.epfl.ch/sawt.html