Graal: [native-image] Cross compilation support?

[sureshg]

Any plans to add cross-compilation feature to native-image? I know it's too early to ask for these kind of requirements since we don't even have a working Windows build. IMHO, this would be a nice feature (golang has nice support for it) to have especially if we want to build binaries for all platforms from a CI (Jenkins) machine.

https://medium.com/@chrisgseaton/i-dont-think-we-have-any-immediate-plans-for-cross-compilation-but-it-s-not-a-major-problem-to-bf789384beaa

[plombardi89]

Definitely would love to see this feature! This would make it so much nicer to use Java for CLI apps and servers that need to be distributed to users on Linux, Mac and Windows.

[alzadude]

It would be amazing to have cross-compilation support. Is this still not planned for yet, or is it dependent on the Windows build? It would still be useful to have cross-compilation available to create Mac binaries on a (Linux) CI server, and then add support for Windows cross-compilation later?

[alzadude]

@thomaswue @chrisseaton I was just wondering if this is on the roadmap for 2019, or has any ETA etc? I think it would be a game-changer!

[alzadude]

@thomaswue @chrisseaton I was just wondering if this is on the roadmap for 2019, or has any ETA etc? I think it would be a game-changer!

Hi @thomaswue @chrisseaton since we're halfway through the year, I just thought I'd check in on this one..

Has there been any development on this issue, or any news/progress to report?

Thanks in advance! 🙂

[sureshg]

@thomaswue Now we have java 11 and windows support ready, are there any plans to consider cross-compilation support in the near future?

[thomaswue]

Adding the support is quite tricky. The issue is that there are parts of the JDK initialized during the native image generation process that could be platform dependent and then end up in the image. One of the alternatives could be to offer a service for creating native images. Also, maybe one could use maybe a system like GitHub actions to build images for different platforms without the need to maintain/setup those machines. Would this help for your use cases or is true cross compilation a requirement?

[xiaodong-xie]

I do think people should have mentioned this workaround elsewhere.

I am using this https://hub.docker.com/r/oracle/graalvm-ce/ docker image, to build the native-image running on Linux, on my MacBook laptop.

[sureshg]

Would this help for your use cases

@thomaswue Thanks. Yeah, GitHub action would work for OSS projects. The issue is, our build system is mostly on Linux and wants to build native-images for windows and mac (mostly for CLI apps). So the cross-compilation would have definitely helped in this scenario.

[nhoughto]

Yeah it’s not really _cross_ compilation if you need the target platform to build it, that’s just regular old compilation. If Cross compilation is a feature being targeted all the jvm weirdness will need to be solved, I guess the question is, is/when is it a priority?

[sureshg]

Here is some discussion on the current limitations - https://graalvm.slack.com/archives/CN9KSFB40/p1582755160011700

[truh]

Here is some discussion on the current limitations - https://graalvm.slack.com/archives/CN9KSFB40/p1582755160011700

Would it be possible to share a summary of the discussion? The slack archive can only be accessed by people that are member to the workspace.

[sureshg]

@truh

Christian Wimmer : 
No, cross compilation between different OS is more or less impossible in
 the current approach because OS specific JDK classes need to be loaded 
in the image generator

The biggest problem is, e.g., the file system and network stack. The JDK code
 for that is very different for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. You cannot load the 
code from two platforms at the same time, but you need to load the code from 
the platform that the image generator runs on.

[CircuitRCAY]

Anything on cross compiling between architectures? (x86_64 -> arm64, for example)

[8Keep]

This is pretty huge for me. Is there any future plan at all to find a way to do this?

[SaraDark]

+1000 to Cross compilation support

[tuhuynh27]

+10000 to Cross compilation support