Exploring Jython 2.7.beta1

Jython is an implementation of Python on the JVM. It offers Python developers access to the Java ecosystem at the cost of C extensions and some convenience. See jython.org for more details and up to date information.

NOTE: Jython 2.7.0 final was released in May 2015, two years after this post, which is left as-is for historical reasons.

Despite being largely successful with Jython 2.5.2 in the past, I did have to monkey patch some “pure” Python libraries to get them to work. Most of the problems stemmed from code that took advantage of newer syntax. Others were trickier to resolve (file descriptor leaks), and a few were not worth the trouble. Needless to say, the 2.7 beta release announcement looked promising:

Jython 2.7b1 brings us up to language level compatibility with the 2.7 version of CPython. We have focused largely on CPython compatibility, and so this release of Jython can run more pure Python apps then any previous release.

In my limited experience, I can confirm these claims. The Java library support has always worked well, and now the pure Python support has received a huge boost. Thank you Jython dev team!

Try it out yourself

Install Jython using the “Traditional Installer”

$ java -jar jython-installer-2.7-b1.jar -s -d env

Bootstrap setuptools

$ env/bin/jython ez_setup.py 

Install a pure Python library

$ env/bin/easy_install mako

Install a Java library (such as jyson) by dropping the jar in to env/javalib. I also needed to update env/bin/jython to fix the classpath generation script:

- CP=$JYTHON_HOME/jython-dev.jar
+ CP=$JYTHON_HOME/jython.jar

Verify both libraries are importable

Jython 2.7b1 (default:ac42d59644e9, Feb 9 2013, 15:24:52) 
[OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (Oracle Corporation)] on java1.7.0_21
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import mako
>>> import com.xhaus.jyson.JysonCodec as json

Thats it! You just mixed python and Java code.