Native Code Interface

This article describes the mechanism of calling between Java and native (typically C or C++) code using the Microsoft Win32 VM for Java (Microsoft VM). This will include the native code DLL interface, as well as implications in the mechanism for garbage collection. This does not describe the Component Object Model (COM) interface, which is another method of interfacing the Microsoft VM with native code written in any other language that supports COM.

Existing Native Code Interface

New Native Code interface

Overview of the Garbage Collection Architecture

The purpose of this native code interface is to provide absolutely the fastest possible interface to native code. While using the COM model makes interfacing to the garbage collection system transparent to the programmer, this interface does not. Instead, it places the burden of interfacing with the garbage collection system on the programmer. If raw access to native code is not essential for performance reasons, using COM is the preferred method of accessing non-Java code.