Perl/Java Modules Loading

[leobm]

Can I also load or import Perl/Java modules from my own project directory? Or do they have to be located in the PerlOnJava project? In other words, in the following directories?

Pure Perl modules: src/main/perl/lib/
Java implementations: src/main/java/org/perlonjava/perlmodule/

[fglock]

Hi @leobm - the "org.perlonjava.perlmodule." string is hardcoded, but this is an easy fix in XSLoader:

https://github.com/fglock/PerlOnJava/blob/master/src/main/java/org/perlonjava/perlmodule/XSLoader.java#L46C54-L46C82

The XSLoader API follows Perl https://metacpan.org/pod/XSLoader

I’ll need to think a bit about how the module prefix could be specified — maybe by using the Java class’s full name.

[leobm]

Perhaps the path for the XS loader could also be set externally via an environment variable, e.g. PERL5JXSLIB or something similar. By default, jperl searches under org.perlonjava.perlmodule in the jperl JAR or otherwise under PERL5JXSLIB/build/classes/java/main/<java_package> or something similar ?

[fglock]

The CLASSPATH variable is the standard way to tell applications where to look for user classes.

Right now, XSLoader resolves a Perl module name into a fully qualified Java class name by removing the double colons and prepending org.perlonjava.perlmodule..

To keep the XSLoader API consistent with Perl, one idea would be to introduce a new loader in Java::System that accepts the full Java class name directly. This would make it possible to load modules outside the default namespace without breaking existing behavior. The new loader could also accept optional arguments for initialization and import settings.

# Perl side
use Java::System ();

# Load a Java class outside the default namespace
Java::System::load_class(
    package => 'My::Module',                    # Perl package to bind
    class    => 'com.myproject.MyModule',       # Fully-qualified Java class
    init     => 'init',                         # optional; default 'init'
    import   => [qw/foo bar/],                  # optional; exported symbols
);

[fglock]

For Perl modules, you can:

• Add the module path to the environment variable PERL5LIB, or use -I or

• Add the modules to the JAR file under src/main/perl/lib/.