Core Java™ 2 Volume II - Advanced Features, Seventh Edition

Using the Invocation API

Up to now, we have considered programs in the Java programming language that made a few C calls, presumably because C was faster or allowed access to functionality that was inaccessible from the Java platform. Suppose you are in the opposite situation. You have a C or C++ program and would like to make a few calls to Java code, perhaps because the Java code is easier to program. Of course, you know how to call the Java methods. But you still need to add the Java virtual machine to your program so that the Java code can be interpreted. The so-called invocation API enables you to embed the Java virtual machine into a C or C++ program. Here is the minimal code that you need to initialize a virtual machine.

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