Someone asked us if bld could be used to generate native application with GraalVM. Our first reaction was, sure, you can create an extension to do just that. But after a bit of reflection, it dawned on me that it could easily be done using the bld-exec extension. The extension allows for executing applications from the command line.
The Maven plugin configuration given to us, as an example, looked something like:
<profile>
<id>native-image</id>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.graalvm.nativeimage</groupId>
<artifactId>native-image-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>21.2.0</version>
<configuration>
<imageName>ExampleApp</imageName>
<mainClass>com.example.ExampleApp</mainClass>
<buildArgs>
<!-- Reduces the image size - Ensures the native image doesn't include the
JVM as a fallback option -->
<buildArg>--no-fallback</buildArg>
<!-- Disables the use of the GraalVM compilation server -->
<buildArg>--no-server</buildArg>
<!-- Improve startup time - Initialize classes at build time rather than at
runtime -->
<buildArg>--initialize-at-build-time</buildArg>
<!-- Include all files under /resources -->
</buildArgs>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>native-image</goal>
</goals>
<phase>package</phase>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>
That's a handful at first glance. But once you understand how the native-image utility options work, it is pretty easy to convert:
@BuildCommand(value = "native-exec", summary = "Builds a native executable")
public void nativeExec() throws Exception {
new ExecOperation()
.fromProject(this)
.timeout(120)
.workDir(buildMainDirectory().getAbsolutePath())
.command("native-image",
"--no-fallback",
"--no-server",
"--initialize-at-build-time",
"com.example.ExampleApp",
new File(workDirectory(), "ExampleApp").getAbsolutePath())
.execute();
}
Just use ./bld compile native-exec, and you're off to the races.
I've created a full example to demonstrate how to build a native executable using a class or JAR.
After converting over 60 projects, I'm still impressed with how flexible (yet, simple) bld truly is.
