A basic idea about the GNU Compiler for Java

Author: Manish Shrivastava

The GNU compiler for Java (in short GCJ) is a compiler for Java platform. It is a free software and a part of the GNU Compiler collections. GCJ compiles Java source code to JVM (Java Virtual Machine) bytecode or directly to machine code for any specified processing architecture. GCJ facilitates a free implementation of the Java environment which is widely used in professional web development processes.

GCJ is advantageous over the J2SE SDK for a number of reasons such as:

Faster startup time
Shared memory amongst various Java native applications
Easier interface for other programming languages
Lesser memory utilization

The GNU Compiler Collection for Java, mainly consists of the following:

GCJ that converts Java codes to machine code
LIBGCJ, the library of standard Java classes
GIJ (GNU Interpreter for Java) to invoke the JVM

The primary benefit of the GCJ is in its ability to generate binary executable from a Java program which can be run on any system without a JRE (Java Runtime Environment). Normally, the GCJ compiles the files called through the command line. At the same time, it scans other files for checking errors and determining the layout of the classes used. While doing so, the GCJ parses the .class files first and then move to Java source files.

Although, the AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit) and Swing are not completed supported by GCJ, one can use Simple Widget Toolkit (SWT) for writing programs with GUIs commonly used in Java-based web sites development ventures.

The GCJ uses CNI (Compiled Native Interface) framework to interact with Java Native applications which are specific to Operating systems and Hardware configurations. CNI is close to JNI (Java Native Interface) framework, but is advantageous when used for any Non-Java platform like C .

Excluding AWT and Swing, the GNU compiler for Java supports most of the Java standard functions like RMI (Remote Method Invocation), Networking classes, Serialization, Collections etc which makes it convenient for any web based development process where Java Language is used.

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