Graal native-image Building Setup on Windows (for Clojure Programs)

graal-native-image-building-setup-on-windows.adoc

Graal native-image Building Setup on Windows (for Clojure Programs)

Background

A deps.edn-based approach is currently blocked because Graal’s native-image requires being run from a special command prompt that comes with Windows SDK 7.1, while the current clojure / clj tooling appears to require being launched via PowerShell.

A work-around using Leiningen and a .bat file (using a non-PowerShell command prompt), was determined by borkdude.

This document is mostly about Java 8 based GraalVMs. For Java 11 based GraalVMs, the process is considerably simpler:

choco install visualstudio2017community --version 15.9.17.0 --no-progress --package-parameters "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.ARM64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CMake.Project"

Requirements

• Windows 7 or later (tested on 7 and 10)

• Windows SDK 7.1

• Graal 19 or later (leads to installation of native-image)

• Leiningen

• Some Clojure Project that’s amenable to native-image-building (e.g. clj-kondo)

Steps

1. Install Windows SDK 7.1

Installing Windows SDK 7.1 may be done via Chocolatey — the relevant command is: choco install windows-sdk-7.1. On Windows 10, an extra download and installation was required. This was unnecessary on Windows 7.

• Installation of Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Service Pack 1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=4422)

via: https://stackoverflow.com/a/45784634

It may be that the following is enough (untested):

choco install -d windows-sdk-7.1 kb2519277

via: https://github.community/t5/GitHub-Actions/Building-GraalVM-native-image-on-Windows-cannot-uninstall/m-p/36752

2. Install native-image

native-image is obtainable via Graal. From version 19, to make our lives interesting, after getting Graal, we are now required to run another command to get native-image :(

• Utility gu Required for native-image Install: oracle/graal#1335

3. Install Leiningen

This can be done in a variety of ways. It appears doable via the Leiningen site, I was happy to do it via scoop.

4. Build Uberjar with Leiningen

In project.clj, be sure to choose :aot :all. Other things may be necessary, see clj-kondo’s project.clj.

• clj-kondo project.clj: https://github.com/borkdude/clj-kondo/blob/fde1e542320d9c45c6a213dc1133b35d23b697ae/project.clj

5. Build via native-image

Use the -jar option to native-image, specifying the uberjar created in the previous step. Note that this native-image building needs to be performed via the Windows SDK 7.1 command prompt.

• Build from Windows SDK 7.1 Command Prompt: oracle/graal#1258 (comment)

• clj-kondo compile.bat script: https://github.com/borkdude/clj-kondo/blob/fde1e542320d9c45c6a213dc1133b35d23b697ae/script/compile.bat

References

• oracle/graal#1258

• taylorwood/clj.native-image#9 (comment)