heterogeneous-foreign-memory

Interact with heterogeneous data (variable width) stored in MemorySegments using the Foreign Function & Memory API.

Overview

A main component of the Java Foreign Function & Memory API is structured access to foreign memory. In other words, instead of "loosely accessing" bits of memory, the FFM API offers abstractions like MemoryLayout to give a structured view of the memory, along with accessor methods, so that you can "get the X component of Point(x,y)" so to speak. This is great. But, what do we do when the data is variable width? What do we do when the data has strings? The demo programs in this subproject show the best I could come up with about how to use the FFM API to access heterogeneous data (like strings).

Instructions

1. Use Java 21
2. Run StringOnlyDemo.java

   • java --enable-preview --source 21 src/StringOnlyDemo.java

3. Run JaggedSteppingWindowDemo.java

   • java --enable-preview --source 21 src/JaggedSteppingWindowDemo.java