Helping hand re. Subversion <-> Java Integration?

[Jesper Steen Møller <je...@selskabet.org>]

Hi all

I'm new to this list as well as to the project but I'm finding 
Subversion a really interesting project, and since I wanted to 
contribute towards an integration of Subversion into Eclipse, I checked 
out the source and started looking around.

By now, I'm familiar with the overalle structure of Subversion.

I can see that the current Java/JNI binding is incomplete and is 
targeting an older version of the client interface, as was also 
mentioned on the mailing list. Somebody mentioned that the JNI wrapper 
was a little "too fat", not like e.g. SWT. Also, I read about the Swig 
based binding which is underway. Is it going places?

I actually got it compiling by getting together all the pieces (APR, 
Neon, ZLib, expat, and all the svn libs) - that's how I got the overview 
;-)) - and updating the call signatures in the JNI wrapper where I 
could. I'll agree that the
the JNI binding has a few gratuitous objects here and there, but I don't 
think it looks too bad to salvage, and I'm willing to give it a try, 
starting with the design issues.

(As an aside, an SWT-style thin wrapper still needs to map every system 
structure and handle callback objects, which is done very elegantly in 
SWT. Less nice is how they need to expose OS functions like MoveMemory!!!
What is really interesing in their approach is that they are creating 
different JNI interfaces towards each supported platform, unlike AWT. 
Conceptually, we are doing the same by designing a JNI wrapper 
specifically for subversion (as opposed to emulating, say, CVS at the 
wrapper layer). But that's a really long discussion.)

However, if the Swig binding is a no-brainer allowing reuse of the 
existing mapping, and saving many lines of JNI code, then I'd happily 
stay out of it. I have no experience whatsoever with Swig.

A bit about me:
I'm a software developer/consultant, 29 years of age, located in wintery 
cold and dark Denmark.

I'm quite seasoned with both C/C++ and Java, but I haven't participated 
a lot in Open Source projects (except for the ACE project, which was a 
really long time ago).

-Jesper Steen Møller

  -


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@subversion.tigris.org