Essential Jni: Java Native Interface

by Rob Gordon

Covers several aspects of the JNI API from the perspective of an experienced developer. This book helps you understand data structures, the JNI's relationship to file systems, native applications and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0136798950
• ISBN13: 9780136798958
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
• Length: 499 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A good book on JNI

I thought this was a decent book on JNI.One reader rated the book one star because it required knowledge of C/C++. However, since the whole point of JNI is to make calls to native objects written in C++, getting upset that the whole book isn't only about Java seems kind of odd. I think the reader was also mad that he had to buy another book to learn C/C++. To me, the title was quite clear concerning the contents of the book.I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn JNI. If you want to learn C or C++, buy a different book since that's not what this one's about.

This is the best source around

I haven't been able to find any other JNI source that covers as many issues as this one does. I do admit that I haven't looked since this book has been doing the job so others may now. He goes through all of the different uses of JNI that one would encounter in practice giving many examples along the way. I especially liked the chapters on creating a JVM and an NT service application. If you are going to be using JNI frequently I definitely recommend this book.

A must read for serious JNI programmers

a must-read if you will be doing real JNI work and don't want to spend a week finding the mistakes and short comings of the Java tutorial on JNI. He gives you both the needed detail, as well as an excellent perspective of the programming model employed by a good JNI developer.

Everything you can do with JNI covered in this book

This is undoubtedly the best book on JNI.The author provides examples and explanation of almost anything and everything you can do with JNI.Its also an indepth coverage into the otherwise complex field of JNI.It provides simple and accurate understanding of the concepts and even tells you the commands that you have to give to your system while working on both solaris or Windows.

This book is what Sun's docs SHOULD have been (and more)

FYI, I reviewed a close-to-final draft of the book sent to me by the publisher. Some of this may be innacurate with respect to the published copy. Sun's JNI documentation is rather dry and is really just reference material. This book is a lot more readable. It describes the JNI functions in a logical manner without just saying "here they are and here's what they do". The author also took time to explain the situations where certain functions would be more appropriate. Some books that I've read take up many chapters hand-holding the reader by explaining how great the internet is or showing samples (with screen captures even) of how to compile source code. This book, however, gives only a brief overview of the history of JNI and then jumps right into the code...very nice! Sample code is used appropriately. Small examples of all APIs are given, without trying to tie them into a "full application". This makes it easier to use the book as a reference. However, there were two chapters dedicated solely to some interesting example code (a Serial I/O example and writing an NT Service)...this made it easy to skip if I didn't want to read them. Nice JNI reference in the appendix. The book seems to address both the Win32 and Unix/Sun environments equally well without making a blind assumption that the reader uses a specific one. (OS/2, MacOS, Linux, and BeOS weren't mentioned, though :-)