richfisher/getting-started-with-jruby

Preface

I'm trying to do some integrations with jruby and java. I encountered some problems, and found that there were only a few information about jruby. So I write down my experience and share it.

Install JRuby

Environment: Mac, rvm

rvm get head
rvm install jruby-9.0.4.0

in your project folder, run

rvm use jruby-9.0.4.0

or create a .ruby-version file

echo 'jruby-9.0.4.0' > .ruby-version

Calling Java

create a folder named getting-started-with-jruby, you can find the code in Github

quick start

create a Hello.java

public class Hello {
	public static void world(){
		System.out.println("Hello JRuby!");
	}
}

compile it with javac Hello.java

require 'java' will give you access to any bundled Java libraries (classes within your java class path)

then we create a calling-class-in-root.rb

require 'java'
Java::Hello.world()

run ruby calling-class-in-root.rb in termial, and you will see the output. Hello JRuby!

classpath

Everything in the Ruby load path is considered to be a classpath entry, so .class files under load path hierarchies are automatically available to be referenced from code.

The classpath is typically set up through the CLASSPATH environment variable or passed to the java command using -cp or -classpath with a delimited list of filesystem locations.

We can add classpath

$CLASSPATH << "classes"
# or $CLASSPATH << "file:///#{File.expand_path('classes')}/"

we create a java file java/src/main/java/SubHello.java, and compile the java file.

create calling-class-in-sub-folder.rb in project root.

require 'java'
$CLASSPATH << "java/src/main/java"

Java::SubHello.world()

run ruby calling-class-in-sub-folder.rb in termial, and you will see the output. Hello jruby in sub folder!

import jar file

require 'path/to/mycode.jar'

create a pom.xml in java folder, run mvn package and we get demo-1.0.jar

create calling-jar.rb in project root,

require 'java'
require './java/target/demo-1.0.jar'
Java::SubHello.world()

run ruby calling-jar.rb in termial, and you will see the output. Hello jruby in sub folder!

jbundler

install JBundler with

gem install jbundler

create a Jarfile, something like:

jar 'commons-io:commons-io', '2.4'

run jbundle install in terminal

require 'jbundler' will give you access to Java libraries announced in Jarfile

create calling-jar-with-jbundler.rb

require 'java'
require 'jbundler'

file = java.io.File.new('./Jarfile')
lines = org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.readLines(file, "UTF-8")
puts lines

we will see the output [jar 'commons-io:commons-io', '2.4']

we can also calling java in caml style, and get the same result

require 'java'
require 'jbundler'

file = Java::JavaIo::File.new('./Jarfile')
lines = Java::OrgApacheCommonsIo::FileUtils.readLines(file, "UTF-8")
puts lines

Speedup initialization

JRuby initialization is much more slower than MRI Ruby, and we will speedup it.

--dev flag

Use the "--dev" flag, this enables the following settings:

client mode where applicable (generally older 32-bit JVMs). The client mode is designed to start up quickly and not optimize as much.
TieredCompilation and TieredStopAtLevel=1, equivalent to client mode on newer Hotspot-based JVMs
compile.mode=OFF to disable JRuby's JVM bytecode compiler
jruby.compile.invokedynamic=false to disable the slow-to-warmup invokedynamic features of JRuby

If you don't need code to be fast but you want the application to start up quickly, this option may be good for you.

use --dev flag with rvm

RVM supports PROJECT_JRUBY_OPTS with two provided hook files (currently, after_use_jruby and after_use_jruby_opts). If enabled by making them executable, the hooks use the script library functions jruby_options_append and jruby_options_remove to append/remove the options in PROJECT_JRUBY_OPTS to/from JRUBY_OPTS.

chmod +x $rvm_path/hooks/after_use_jruby_opts
echo 'PROJECT_JRUBY_OPTS=(--dev)' > ~/.rvmrc

tools

rails/spring MRI Ruby only, they use fork which doesn't work on JRuby

spork, not work. start with error TypeError: no implicit conversion of Fixnum into String

theine Rails pre-loader designed to work on JRuby gem install thenine theine_server time thenine rake test 4.882s time theine runner "puts Rails.env" 4.464s

drip Fast JVM launching not working with rails runner

benchmark

create two project.

rvm use 2.2.3
gem install rails
rails new ruby-on-rails

rvm use jruby-9.0.4.0
gem install rails
rails new jruby-on-rails

time rake test
time rails s
time rails runner "puts Rails.env"

	ruby	jruby	jruby --dev	theine
rake test	3.841s	13.547s	7.451s	4.882s
rails s	4.796s	20.914s	11.833s	5.084s
rails runner	2.128s	17.116s	9.718s	4.464s

Using --dev flag, we can roughly cut 45% time when initialization. And theine is a good option.

Performance

While the start up time of JRuby is quite slow, how about the performance?

Using ab to test the two blank rails projects.

	Ruby on Rails	JRuby on Rails
ab -n 1000 -c 1	22.103ms	16.275ms
ab -n 1000 -c 10	22.079ms	12.622ms
ab -n 1000 -c 50	22.051ms	12.236ms

Well, looks good!

Reference

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Getting started with JRuby

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