generate class file during runtime?

[balla]

Hi, I wrote some classes that one can use to display functions, polars, parametrics, data, etc...I represent each function with a class that implements a Function interface.

public interface Function{
     //returns the value of the function at this input (returns f(x))
     public double at(double x);
}

using anonymous classes and eclipse, it's pretty easy to generate graphs by editing a driver class in the editor window. But now I want to create a GUI to make it more user friendly...the way I was thinking of allowing user-defined functions was to have a text box where the user types the return statement for the at method in the Function interface, and then having java compile it into a new function to load. The user would have to use java's syntax, but it seems a helluva lot easier than writing a parser. My only problem is that, from what I understand, I can't use the compiler unless the user has the JDK installed, not just the JVM, like most non-programmers do. My question is if anyone knows how to take simple java code (for example, a return statement like "return x*x" to generate a function that represents y=x^2) generated during run time and load it as if it was written before, by the programmer. I can't thank you guys enough!

[JosAH]

Since Java 1.5 the JRE comes bundled with a Javascript engine (written in Java); if you're willing to use Javascript syntax instead (it's very similar to Java's syntax) you can use a Javscript engine. Here's a quick and dirty example:

import javax.script.Invocable;
import javax.script.ScriptEngine;
import javax.script.ScriptEngineManager;
import javax.script.ScriptException;
 
public class ScriptDemo {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
    	
        ScriptEngineManager manager = new ScriptEngineManager();
        ScriptEngine engine = manager.getEngineByName("JavaScript");
        
        try {
            String expression = "function add(x, y) { return x+y; }";
            engine.eval(expression);
            
        	engine.put("a", 41);
        	
        	// 
            engine.put("b", 1);

            Invocable invocable= (Invocable)engine;
            
            double d= (Double)engine.eval("add(a, b)");
            
            System.out.println(d);
            
            System.out.println("add(1, 41)= "+invocable.invokeFunction("add", 1, 41));
            
            System.out.println("add(a, b)= "+invocable.invokeFunction("add", "a", "b"));
            
            System.out.println("add(a, b)= "+engine.eval("add(a, b)"));
        } catch(ScriptException se) {
            se.printStackTrace();
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException nsme) {
        	nsme.printStackTrace();
        }

    }
}

kind regards,

Jos

[DarrylBurke]

Another, Windows-only way is to write out a VBS script to a file, execute it, and collect the return value.

A couple of examples of this approach:
Printing excel document without opening
Find windows special folders (Java in General forum at JavaRanch)

db

[balla]

After looking into the JavaScript engine, I think I'm going to go with that one, mainly because I understand the procedure better lol. Do you guys think the fact that the functions will be scripted as opposed to java-coded will reduce the speed of execution? the function is evaluated once per horizontal pixel, so 500 times on a 500x500 pane. Thanks so much!

[JosAH]

After looking into the JavaScript engine, I think I'm going to go with that one, mainly because I understand the procedure better lol. Do you guys think the fact that the functions will be scripted as opposed to java-coded will reduce the speed of execution? the function is evaluated once per horizontal pixel, so 500 times on a 500x500 pane. Thanks so much!

Of course a purely interpreted language is slower than compiled Java but read the API documentation for the ScriptEngine framework; my example also shows it: an Invocable object only needs to compile the script once and can be run many times; this speeds up the entire thing. 500 expression evaluations (as in your example) doesn't take much time. Another option is BeanShell, it's an interpreted version of a form of Java and it can do great stuff with ordinary compiled Java too.

kind regards,

Jos

[balla]

Can I do something like a static import in JavaScript so that the user can simply write "sin(5)" instead of "Math.sin(5)"? I can't seem to find documentation on it, if it's possible at all.