This software was developed by Sojo Studios, Inc. Please visit the project's home page.

This is a tool that will take Java 1.5 source code and make a best-effort translation of that code into AS3 code. The resulting AS3 code can then be compiled into a SWF or SWC using Adobe's Flex SDK.

The compiler uses the javaparser library to construct an Abstract Syntax Tree from the input Java code. There are then two passes made over the tree. The first is a mutation pass where incompatible nodes are replaced with compatible nodes. The second is a dump pass, where the AS3 source code is assembled into a string of text.

The major features of this compiler revolve around the ability to perform basic mutations from Java-specific classes into AS3 equivalents. The three major targets are:

• Arrays
• Vectors
• Dictionaries

The use of these classes is fundamentally different within the context of AS3, but there are obviously Java counterparts:

• Arrays and Lists
• Lists / Collections
• Maps

The default mutations include:

• The conversion of any array, typed as "L[Class]" in Java, into an AS3 Array
• The conversion of some Lists into AS3 Vectors, including template-typing
• The conversion of some Maps into AS3 Dictionaries

There is also the ability to specify any additional Class type as a something that needs to be converted to one of the above. This is useful if you extend a Map or List.

The additional basic features provide some utilities for conversions between compatible classes that do not need mutations.

• Forcing a class to extend Sprite or MovieClip (forceSprite, forceMovieClip)
• Regex matching package names and converting them (packageToPackage)
• Regex matching imports and converting them (importsToImports)
• Regex matching class names and converting them (classesToClasses)
• Ability to completely ignore regex matched imports such as java.* (importsToIgnore)
• Ability to force additional imports (forcedImports)
• Ability to specify additional classes to be converted to Arrays (classesToArrays)
• Ability to specify additional classes to be converted to Vectors (classesToVectors)
• Ability to specify additional classes to be converted to Dictionaries (classesToDictionaries)

Because this compiler only parses one file at a time, it does not do type checking, and does not track typing information from imports. This means that if you use an external function that returns a type that needs to be mutated, such as a string, the compiler will not be able to detect the need for a mutation.

For example:

if(ExternalClass.getAString().equals("x"))

Will not be properly translated into

if(ExternalClass.getAString() == "x")

The workaround for these typing situations is to store the value in a local variable first. This makes the code more terse, but it does work.

String myVal = ExternalClass.getAString();
if(myVal.equals("x"))

Will be properly translated into

var myVal:String = ExternalClass.getAString();
if(myVal == "x")

In addition to the sojo-java-to-as3 jar, you will need to have log4j and javaparser included in the classpath to use this task in Ant.

<taskdef name="javaToAs3" classname="com.sojostudios.as3.ant.JavaToAS3Task">
	<classpath refid="some.path" />
</taskdef>
<target name="compile">
	<javaToAs3 includeDefaultMutations="true">
		<sourceTarget src="MyClass.java" dst="MyClass.as" forceMovieClip="true" />
 		<sourceTarget src="MyHelperClass.java" dst="MyHelperClass.as" />
	</javaToAs3>
</target>

You will need to add a url entry to your repositories list in your Ivy settings file. Example settings file:

<ivysettings>
        <settings defaultResolver="ibiblio"/>
        <resolvers>
                <ibiblio name="ibiblio" m2compatible="true"/>
                <url name="sojo-studios.github.com">
					<ivy pattern="http://sojo-studios.github.com/repo/[module]/[revision]/ivy.xml" />
					<artifact pattern="http://sojo-studios.github.com/repo/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]" />
				</url>
        </resolvers>
        <modules>
                <module organisation="com.sojostudios" name=".*" resolver="sojo-studios.github.com" />
        </modules>
</ivysettings>

You then need to add a dependency for sojo-java-to-as3 to your ivy.xml file that points to master.

<configurations>
	<conf name="compile" visibility="public" description="libraries used during compilation."/>
	<conf name="runtime" visibility="public" description="libraries used during runtime." extends="compile"/>
</configurations>
<dependencies>
	<dependency org="com.sojostudios" name="sojo-java-to-as3" rev="1.0.5" conf="compile->master(*);runtime->default"/>
</dependencies>

Also, don't forget to load your Ivy settings file in your Ant buildfile. Example assuming file is ivysettings.xml in the root project build directory:

<ivy:settings file="ivysettings.xml" />

Then add a task to your Ant buildfile to resolve dependencies:

<target name="resolve" description="resolve dependencies">
	<ivy:retrieve conf="compile"/>
</target>

You will need Ant and Ivy installed to build this project. Once they are installed, just run ant in the root project directory and will create a .jar file in the jar/ directory.

v1.0.14

• fixed for each loops (via westnordost)
• fixed array initialization (via westnordost)
• fixed possible null pointer (via westnordost)
• removed hardcoded Dictionary import (via westnordost)
• can now compile directories via command line (via westnordost)
• jar manifest cleaned up (via westnordost)

v1.0.13

• fixed String.length()

v1.0.12

• fixed a bug where cast expressions were being ignored in variable declarations during mutation pass

v1.0.11

• added ability to modify mutation output class names

v1.0.10

• fixed an issue with scientific notation on doubles, where E was removed from the output string

v1.0.9

• added support for loglevel attribute in ant task

v1.0.8

• added support for extending array/vector/dictionary types

v1.0.7

• fixed scoping/mutation problem with class field declarations

v1.0.6a

• removed comments for Map declarations, Map<a,Map<b,c>> were creating syntax errors

v1.0.6

• added all standard Collection and Map classes for conversion

v1.0.5

• initial public release