November 23, 2005

Batik Project(Apache SVG Library) Now Available On .NET Platform?

Kurt asked me a while back if I wouldn't mind looking into the possibility of recompiling Batik, Apache SVG Library project, using IKVM(ikvmc.exe to be more precise) to then, of course, be made available for the .NET platform. My last attempt was probably 6 months ago and there were several problems that I ran into that seemed large enough to discourage trying to make any attempt at hacking together a fix.

However, in looking through the latest change log from the latest IKVM 0.22 release I noticed this entry:

Fixed bug 1310397.

Which if you visit the link you will see the following summary:

---
Exception compiling Crimson.jar
I'd like to be able to use Batik, the Apache SVG
implementation, in .NET. batik.jar compiles without
error however realised that it is necessary to compile
Crimson for any application to run as this library is used
to parse svg (xml) documents. As you will know,
Crimson is provided as part of the Java runtime but is
available from the Apache site.

Compiling this jar generates:

InvalidOperationException: Type must be declared
abstract if any of its methods are abstract.

I'm submitting this issue for your review based on the
you blog comment that if it can be dne in java...

Best wishes

Bill Seddon
---

Given the fact that the bug is now fixed and the trouble ticket closed, I wonder if this will be enough to allow both Crimson and Batik to compile correctly and as such become available to .NET developers?

That would be sweet! I will make an attempt and see what happens. I'll post back the results here in a bit.

[UPDATE: Just noticed on the System Requirements page for Batik that:

Java Virtual Machine A Java 1.3 or greater compatible virtual machine must be present.

Which means that, technically speaking, the Java Language Conversion Assistant 3.0 (which supposedly will convert a Java language project based on J2EE <= 1.3 although I have had some wierd results that suggest otherwise) could also be a possibility. Not that this is all that crucial given the work of the SVG# project that I posted a link to last two days ago. But having several options to play with certainly can't hurt and could even help given that they are both open source and could easily utilize the generated code-base to fill in any holes temporarily while a more rock-solid platform is built based on pure .NET FCL programming.]

[UPDATE: While things seem possible there are so many external dependency warnings that have pushed me to the point of wanting to build each piece of Batik from source such that I can gain a much better feel for what's needed and what is not. While its something I would like to do, its not something I have time for at the moment and as such have added to my list of "Cool things to look into as time permits." If and whent it does, I will look deeper into this, unless of course somebody else get's this up and running before then. If that happens to be the case and any of you hear/know about it, would you mind leaving a comment? Thanks!]