Matlab connection with Java daemon running in Java - java

I am having problems with the interconnection between two modules of my system, I hope you can help me.
My hardware is:
Desktop computer running Windows.
Linux server that runs a Java daemon.
I have a Java app that connects to the daemon and shares information properly, basically it is a TCP connection, but it creates objects to operate with the send, receive methods.
However, it is mandatory for other reasons to send and receive data from Matlab to the server, and viceversa.
I have never used Matlab for connections, so I was wondering if you know how can I connect these modules.
I have thought about including the Java code into Matlab, but I am doubting about its feasibility, as it uses very particular libraries.
I also thought about using tcpip Matlab Function, but I think it won't work.
Thank you for your help!
George.

Well, basically there's only three options:
Use tcpip - if the corresponding toolbox is available.
Use Java: This should be straightforward - you could either use the standard java environment to open sockets and perform the read/write operations or try to include your own java libraries.
Implement the connection in C/C++ and include it via mex - which seems to be the most inconvenient alternative.
Given that you seem to have working Java classes doing your work, option 2 seems to be the best approach, imho.
Including third party libraries in MATLAB usually can work pretty good.
For a start, see e.g.:
http://www.mathworks.de/de/help/matlab/matlab_external/bringing-java-classes-and-methods-into-matlab-workspace.html
I happened to work within alternative 2 using a third party library for object-based communication with some database-interface.

Related

Communicating between XUL and Java

I would like to use a mixture of Java and XUL for my next project.
I want to build the GUI in XUL, but I need certain Java libraries for the business logic.
What options are available for communicating between Java and XUL? I've googled the topic a bit, and there doesn't seem to be a clear best practice for this.
There aren't exactly lots of options:
You can put an invisible Java applet into a XUL document somewhere and communicate with that applet from JavaScript.
You can run a Java application via nsIProcess and communicate with it via TCP sockets.
The first solution seems simpler but it is also more error-prone as some questions here show.

Interface with running applications in PHP?

I would like to know if there is any way to communicate with a running console program (preferably running on Linux / Debian) via PHP. I am currently trying to create a webinterface for a little (existing) console Java program and I have no idea if there is any way I could do this. Could I "inject" a piece of code, lets say, a remote control module, and then use this to "remote-control" the script via PHP?
(It would be great if the existing .jar file wouldn't be changed / just injection, no reprogramming)
I am grateful for every piece of advice!
If the running program has no communication interface, then you can't communicate with it. If it does however, then the answer very much depends on how the program receives external input.
If the program contains a network listening thread (daemon), then you can communicate with it on the loopback interface using CURL or raw sockets from PHP.
Other ways of communicating with the program would be to share access to a file (PHP writes the file, Java reads it) or via a database.
The database would be the best option - it is thread safe and both PHP and Java have excellent MySQL support (Java via JDBC).
If, however you do not need to actually interface with the running program only merely need to start/stop/restart it, you can do this with the system() function in PHP.
If the Java program just runs and outputs to console, then you can do it easily enough, something like this:
$output = system( "java com.yourcompany.package.RunnableClass" );
print $output;
Assuming that the user who is running PHP has access to the Java binary of course, and that you have permission to access the JAR file.
Accessing a running program is a bit more difficult. Most programs will not have this built in by default (nor should they - giving access to random external processes in many cases is not desirable). If it does, though, you are in good shape. If it doesn't, and you can change the Java code, then you're good. If not, then you may be out of luck.
If that is the case, another good approach might be to see what resources the Java code is accessing, and how it is accessing them. Then you can write something similar in PHP. Obviously this is not ideal as you'll be re-inventing the wheel, but if you need to get to the data or whatever it is, and can't use any of the approaches above, it will work.

client server communication in Java

I am trying to set up a webserver on an old machine of mine. I have installed ubuntu server edition and aim to use it for the following:
I want to run a java program on the server. I want to be able to retrieve data from the program from another computer/phone using an internet connection. I also want to be able to give the program data, and get a response saying whether or not the data has been received correctly.
So for example:
A .jar program runs on my server and holds a variable x
I want to be able to query the value of x from another device (over the internet).
I want to be able to set the value of x remotely from another device, and get a response saying it was successful in altering the value.
What are my options here? I would like to try and keep things simple. It is perhaps worth mentioning that I will be the only one using the system. The server will be used exclusively for dealing with the two requests outline above.
Is it simply the case of creating a java program that listens out for incoming requests and running that on the server?
As you mentioned, you can start with custom ServerSocket wrapper which will decode incoming requests and do as it's bid. Currently, whole frameworks are done to encapsulate common code of this task -- see my 3rd point.
Old-school java solution: use RMI. See RMI tutorial.
New-school java solution: devise some simple text-based protocol with 2 commands:
Read()
Set(newVal)
Then implement that protocol over some new trendy Java framework, like Apache MINA, which is created specifically to facilitate quick development of network apps in Java.
I, personally, started with RMI for such kind of tasks. Since RMI is considered Core Java technology, it's wise to learn it.

Fastest(performance-wise) way to share data(not objects) between .Net & Java

I know of at least one post which has same words like this. But this is not exactly same as that post. I'm trying to work a way to "share" data between a .NET and Java application. I'm not concerned about objects, but just plain strings if u like.
I have a .NET application capturing real-time data and a Java application which has capability to analyze and work on this data. I'm looking for ways to re-use this same java app without coding it entirely in .NET.
My problem is that the data is "fairly" REAL-Time (.NET), and so has to be the analysis (Java). I can live with microsecond delays but I can't afford one second delay. WebServices, Queues (as in Messaging Queues), RDBMS are some of the options I can think of. Is there any better way?
Or has anybody got some real performance numbers for the solutions I mentioned above to select one of them? And just to get started: RDBMSs' are not "THAT" good for concurrent (connections doing) insertion/updation/reading, at least with the crude way of doing DBMS stuff. (Deadlocks?)
What are "objects" if not a mechanism for describing "data"? But I digress - I suspect I would look at a TCP socket between the two. If the data is very basic, then fine - just write directly to the stream; if there is any complexity, perhaps use something like "protocol buffers" to provide an easy way of reading/writing dense data to a stream without having to write every last byte yourself.
I think microsecond delays are going to be a challenge for any approach here... will millisecond delays do?
For completeness:
Another possible is to use Named pipes, it should be pretty quick, and I'd imagine (being a java guy I can only imagine) that .NET has native support for them. The down side is that on windows you'll have to either write a JNI extension or use a library like JNA to poke around at the Win32 API from Java.
Sounds like a local socket could do. The latency should be in low ms or less.
Depending on your program you may get some milage out of what #Cowan reports in answer to 'Any Concept of shared memory in java', his answer is: Any concept of shared memory in Java
In summary: he say's that you can use memory mapped files between two processes on the same machine. This in theory could work between .NET and java assuming .NET has some memory mapped file support.
Different machines communicate with each other by sending messages into sockets. Please check the below link for example.
Socket programming in the real world
Answers provided here are great. One idea that might be of interest, but is probably asking for more trouble than it's worth is to load both VMs in a single process (both the JVM and the CLR can be loaded within a native Windows application) and give them access to native code. Java via JNI and .Net via the mapping functions to native code that they allow.
You could also leverage native queue semaphores to wake up a thread on one side or the other when data is updated.
While JNI transitions are expense, they would probably still be faster than the native local socket implementation.
How is your Java application currently deployed? It sounds to me like you're willing to make some modification to it, so I'm assuming you have access to the source code.
I know this is a little out there, but could you compile the Java application in the J# compiler, so that your .NET app has native access to it?
You can convert your compiled java application to .NET by IKVM. After that you can change logic of your .NET application so it will not make data transfers to Java application, but just call data processing code written in Java as it were written and compiled for .NET.
There are a number of JMS servers which support .NET and Java clients. These can perform messages in under a millisecond.
However you might like to try an RPC solution like Hessian RPC or Protobuf RPC. These can achieve lower latencies and can give the appearance of direct calls between platforms. These support .NET and Java as well.

Connect PHP code to Java backend

I am implementing a website using PHP for the front end and a Java service as the back end. The two parts are as follows:
PHP front end listens to http requests and interacts with the database.
The Java back end run continuously and responds to calls from the front end.
More specifically, the back end is a daemon that connects and maintain the link to several IM services (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber...).
Both of the layers will be deployed on the same system (a CentOS box, I suppose) and introducing a middle layer (for instance: using XML-RPC) will reduce the performance (the resource is also rather limited).
Question: Is there a way to link the two layers directly? (no more web services in between)
Since this is communication between two separate running processes, a "direct" call (as in JNI) is not possible. The easiest ways to do such interprocess communcation are probably named pipes and network sockets. In both cases, you'll have to define a communication protocol and implement it on both sides. Using a standard protocol such as XML-RPC makes this easier, but is not strictly necessary.
There are generally four patterns for application integration:
via Filesystem, ie. one producers writes data to a directory monitored by the consumer
via Database, ie. two applications share a schema or table and use it to swap data
via RMI/RPC/web service/any blocking, sync call from one app to another. For PHP to Java you can pick from the various integration libraries listed above, or use some web services standards like SOAP.
via messaging/any non-blocking, async operation where one app sends a message to another app.
Each of these patterns has pros and cons, but a good rule of thumb is to pick the one with the loosest coupling that you can get away with. For example, if you selected #4 your Java app could crash without also taking down your PHP app.
I'd suggest before looking at specific libraries or technologies listed in the answers here that you pick the right pattern for you, then investigate your specific options.
I have tried PHP-Java bridge(php-java-bridge.sourceforge.net/pjb/) and it works quite well. Basically, we need to run a jar file (JavaBridge.jar) which listens on port(there are several options available like Local socket, 8080 port and so on). Your java class files must be availabe to the JavaBridge in the classpath. You need to include a file Java.inc in your php and you can access the Java classes.
Sure, there are lots of ways, but you said about the limited resource...
IMHO define your own lightweight RPC-like protocol and use sockets on TCP/IP to communicate. Actually in this case there's no need to use full advantages of RPC etc... You need only to define API for this particular case and implement it on both sides. In this case you can serialize your packets to quite small. You can even assign a kind of GUIDs to your remote methods and use them to save the traffic and speed-up your intercommunication.
The advantage of sockets usage is that your solution will be pretty scalable.
You could try the PHP/Java integration.
Also, if the communication is one-way (something like "sendmail for IM"), you could write out the PHP requests to a file and monitor that in your Java app.
I was also faced with this problem recently. The Resin solution above is actually a complete re-write of PHP in Java along the lines of JRuby, Jython and Rhino. It is called Quercus. But I'm guessing for you as it was for me, tossing out your Apache/PHP setup isn't really an option.
And there are more problems with Quercus besides: the free version is GPL, which is tricky if you're developing commercial software (though not as tricky as Resin would like you to believe (but IANAL)) and on top of that the free version doesn't support compiling to byte code, so its basically an interpreter written in Java.
What I decided on in the end was to just exchange simple messages over HTTP. I used PHP's json_encode()/json_decode() and Java's json-lib to encode the messages in JSON (simple, text-based, good match for data model).
Another interesting and light-weight option would be to have Java generate PHP code and then use PHP include() directive to fetch that over HTTP and execute it. I haven't tried this though.
If its the actual HTTP calls you're concerned about (for performance), neither of these solutions will help there. All I can say is that I haven't had problems with the PHP and Java on the same LAN. My feeling is that it won't be a problem for the vast majority of applications as long as you keep your RPC calls fairly course-grained (which you really should do anyway).
Sorry, this is a bit of a quick answer but: i heard the Resin app server has support for integrating java and PHP.
They claim they can smash php and java together: http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/quercus/
I've used resin for serving J2ee applications, but not for its PHP support.
I'd be interested to hear of such adventures.
Why not use web service?
Make a Java layer and put a ws access(Axis, SpringWS, etc...) and the Php access the Java layer using one ws client.
I think it's simple and useful.
I've come across this page which introduces a means to link the two layers. However, it still requires a middle layer (TCP/IP). Moreover, other services may exploit the Java service as well because it accepts all incoming connections.
http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/20509
[Researching...]

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