(Adding to GSoC ideas page)
Java Native Runtime-based IO and process-mgmt subsystem
JRuby currently uses Java’s standard NIO and ProcessBuilder APIs for
doing all IO and process management. We’ve managed to hack this well
enough over the years, but there are many features we can’t easily
support using only Java’s APIs.
The Java Native Runtime provides an FFI layer to Java that JRuby uses
for many basic POSIX functions. One of its subprojects, jnr-enxio,
provides NIO-compatible wrappers around standard native IO operations,
allowing things like selectable stdio (Java’s stdio is not
selectable), UNIX sockets (jnr-unixsocket), and the potential for us
to spawn subprocesses using functions like posix_spawn (which can
carry parent descriptors through to children).
JRuby would benefit from work on a process-management and IO subsystem
based on JNR, for cases where the Java APIs simply are not suitable.
- Charlie
