Saxon

Today I have explored various ways to get Norm's Invisible XML tools CoffeeSacks, CoffeeGrinder and CoffeeFilter cross-compiled to .NET to be able to use them from Saxon .NET 10.x in .NET framework apps.

That failed in various ways, it seems Norm's code uses a method java.lang.String.codePoints that is in current Java 8/1.8 releases but somehow documented only to have been introduced in Java 9/1.9; as the original IKVM is based on some rather old Java 1.8 OpenJDK it doesn't seem to know that method so an attempt to cross compile with that IKVM gives various errors like

IKVM.NET Compiler version 8.1.5717.0
Copyright (C) 2002-2015 Jeroen Frijters
http://www.ikvm.net/

warning IKVMC0117: Emitted java.lang.NoSuchMethodError in "org.nineml.coffeegrinder.gll.GllParser.parse(Ljava.lang.String;)Lorg.nineml.coffeegrinder.gll.GllResult;"
    ("java.lang.String.codePoints()Ljava.util.stream.IntStream;")

While there seems to have been an attempt to fix this https://sourceforge.net/p/ikvm/mailman/message/35351681/ this doesn't seem to be in the IKVM version Saxonica uses to compile Saxon 10 for .NET.

Therefore I have looked at some of the existing IKVM forks and have successfully tested that I can compile Saxon 10.6 HE Java plus those three libraries from Norm with https://www.nuget.org/packages/IKVM/8.2.1 to get a .NET framework executable that run the Saxon 10 command line to register Norm's extension library for Saxon Java cross-compiled to .NET:

.\saxon106.exe -it -xsl:..\xslt\blog-xslt-3-by-example\invisible-xml\coffeepot-in-xslt-test1.xsl -init:org.nineml.coffeesacks.RegisterCoffeeSacks !indent=1
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<doc>
   <date>
      <day>15</day>
      <month>February</month>
      <year>2022</year>
   </date>
</doc>

Based on some Slack exchange with Norm I file this bug/feature request to consider whether a future 10.x .NET release can be based on that https://www.nuget.org/packages/IKVM/8.2.1 (or newer if they update), to allow the easy integration Invisible XML in XSLT and XQuery and XPath for the .NET framework by cross compiling Norm's Coffee* tools for .NET with the named IKVM.

My setup for that IKVM was e.g.

PS C:\Users\marti> .\ikvm\ikvm-revived821\ikvm\ikvmc.exe -target:exe -out:saxon106.exe 'C:\Program Files\Saxonica\SaxonHE10-6J\saxon-he-10.6.jar' 'C:\Users\marti\OneDrive\Documents\coffeesacks\coffeesacks-1.99.12\CoffeeSacks-1.99.12.jar' 'C:\Users\marti\OneDrive\Documents\coffeefilter\coffeefilter-1.99.9\CoffeeFilter-1.99.9.jar' 'C:\Users\marti\OneDrive\Documents\coffeegrinder\coffeegrinder-1.99.8\CoffeeGrinder-1.99.8.jar'
IKVM.NET Compiler (8.2.1+Branch.main.Sha.e85684966cf595d7942d6930fda9c27d23b509e1)
Copyright © 2022 Jeroen Frijters, Windward Studios, Jerome Haltom, Shad Storhaug

note IKVMC0004: Using main class "net.sf.saxon.Transform" based on jar manifest
warning IKVMC0100: Class "jline.console.completer.FileNameCompleter" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "jline.console.completer.StringsCompleter" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "org.apache.xml.resolver.helpers.Debug" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "jline.console.ConsoleReader" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "org.apache.xml.resolver.CatalogManager" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "org.slf4j.LoggerFactory" not found
warning IKVMC0100: Class "org.slf4j.Logger" not found

To run the executable I needed to copy various dlls like IKVM.Java.dll, IKVM.Reflection.dll, IKVM.Runtime.dll, System.Buffers.dll, System.Memory.dll,System.Numerics.Vectors.dll, System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe.dll to the same directory as the executable.

I have not identified whether all of them are needed.

A bit unsurprisingly no IKVM.OpenJDK.* dlls are directly used, I am not sure so far whether they have been all incorporated in the other dlls or somehow the existing ones from the assembly cache are used.