Book Image

Modular Programming in Java 9

By : Koushik Srinivas Kothagal
Book Image

Modular Programming in Java 9

By: Koushik Srinivas Kothagal

Overview of this book

The Java 9 module system is an important addition to the language that affects the way we design, write, and organize code and libraries in Java. It provides a new way to achieve maintainable code by the encapsulation of Java types, as well as a way to write better libraries that have clear interfaces. Effectively using the module system requires an understanding of how modules work and what the best practices of creating modules are. This book will give you step-by-step instructions to create new modules as well as migrate code from earlier versions of Java to the Java 9 module system. You'll be working on a fully modular sample application and add features to it as you learn about Java modules. You'll learn how to create module definitions, setup inter-module dependencies, and use the built-in modules from the modular JDK. You will also learn about module resolution and how to use jlink to generate custom runtime images. We will end our journey by taking a look at the road ahead. You will learn some powerful best practices that will help you as you start building modular applications. You will also learn how to upgrade an existing Java 8 codebase to Java 9, handle issues with libraries, and how to test Java 9 applications.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Linking using jlink


JDK 9 comes bundled with a new tool called jlink that lets you build your own complete runtime image that contains everything necessary to execute a given application. Remember the new structure of the JDK that we looked at in Chapter 4, Introducing the Modular JDK:

With jlink, you can create a similar custom image of your own to distribute your application. The generated image contains:

  • The minimal set of your application and library modules that you've authored or added
  • The minimal set of platform modules needed for your application to work

This effectively solves the problem of the huge overhead incurred to ship the platform along with your application. What you ship is just what the application needs--no more, no less. There are further benefits to this process, but before we get into that, let's learn how to use jlink to create this image.

The jlink command

The jlink command needs the following inputs:

  • The module path: This is where it needs to look for modules. This is...