Ja.NET Development Tools

Background

To help you better utilize the Ja.NET SE tools and runtime, it is important that you understand how .NET assemblies and classes are handled by the runtime.  The articles in the basic information section contain important information on class loading, assemblies, and class paths that you will need to understand to be most effective in using Ja.NET SE.

• Basic Information

Developer Tools

Ja.NET SE includes some of the same basic tools as those found in other standard Java development kits.  We have started to make enhancements to some of these tools which enables them to work appropriately for the .NET platform, as well as the standard Java Harmony platform included with SE.  For example, the javac compiler has been enhanced to emit MSIL, the underlying .NET byte code, in addition to the normal Java byte code.

Not all of the tools have .NET enhancements at this point, so we have noted those that have in the tables below. Keep in mind that we have not disabled support for the standard Java platform in any of the tools, instead, in some cases, we have added support for .NET and enabled it as the default when using the tools.

Also note that by default, all of the Java tools start and run on the .NET runtime rather than the Harmony JVM.  So for example, even though you may be running the compiler and generating code for a standard Java platform, the compiler will actually be running on .NET.  If you'd like to change that, you can use the "-J-vmdir:drlvm" option to force the tool to be launched on the included Harmony VM, rather than .NET.

• Core Tools (e.g., java, javaw, javac, bam, etc.)
• Security Tools (e.g., keytool, jarsigner)
• Deployment Tools (e.g., unpack200)

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Basic Information

• Ja.NET SE and .NET Assemblies
• How Assemblies are Found
• How Classes are Found
• Custom Class Loaders

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Core Tools

Tool	Overview	.NET Enhanced
javac	Compiler for the Java programming language capable of producing MSIL or Java byte code.	X
java	The launcher for starting Java applications. Can launch applications to run on .NET or the Harmony JVM included in Ja.NET SE.	X
javaw	The same launcher as above, but has no associated console window.	X
bam	Builds .NET assembly modules by combining the assemblies produced by the javac compiler into a combined assembly.	X
appletviewer	Enables you to run applets without a web browser.
javadoc	The Java API documentation generator.
javah	C header file generator for native methods.

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Security Tools

Tool	Overview	.NET Enhanced
jarsigner	Generate and verify Jar file signatures.
keytool	Mange keystores and certificates.

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Deployment Tools

Tool	Overview	.NET Enhanced
unpack200	Convert a package file into a jar file.