Haskell on the JVM via GHCJS and Nashorn

27 Feb 2016 • Haskell • JVM • Nashorn • GHCJS

Currently there are 2 ways we can write Haskell on the JVM:

  1. Frege, a language that follows Haskell 2010 standard and compiles to Java.
  2. Haskell itself by compiling it to JavaScript via GHCJS.

Frege is basically a Haskell for the JVM and infact conforms to Haskell 2010 with few inbuilt GHC extensions. Even with good Java interop, it doesn’t sacrifice its type guarantees and currently is the only pure language on the JVM.

In this post, I am going to explore another interesting option: Haskell itself on the JVM. Haskell can be compiled to JavaScript using GHCJS and Java has an inbuilt JavaScript engine, called Nashorn so it is actually possible to compile Haskell to JavaScript and run the resulting JavaScript on the JVM.

Here is a simple Haskell code that can be run on the JVM:

module Main where

-- Nashorn doesn't provide default console object. Haskell's putStrLn logs to the console.
foreign import javascript unsafe "console={ \
    \ log: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ info: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ warn: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ debug: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ error: function(s) { java.lang.System.err.print(s); }\
    \ }"
  setupConsole :: IO ()

foreign import javascript unsafe "java.lang.System.exit($1)"
  sysexit :: Int -> IO ()

main = do
  setupConsole
  putStrLn "Hello from Haskell!"
  sysexit 0

Nashorn doesn’t have an inbuilt console object and Haskell’s putStrLn prints to the console so we have to provide an implementation of console. The implementation, as can be seen from the code above, is actually backed by Java’s System.out.print. That is our first example of calling Java from Haskell. sysexit is another function calling Java. sysexit is needed here as otherwise the program just keeps on running which I think is because of JavaScript event loop or something similar that prevents the JVM from shutting down.

Compiling Haskell with GHCJS and running on JVM

$ ghcjs -o HelloJava HelloJava.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( HelloJava.hs, HelloJava.js_o )
Linking HelloJava.jsexe (Main)

$ jjs HelloJava.jsexe/all.js 
Hello from Haskell!

jjs is a JVM laucher for JavaScript code similar to Node. It is also possible to run this as a regular Java program along with other Java classes without jjs. jjs is just a convenient way to run just JavaScript code on the JVM. Above GHCJS compiles the Haskell code to JavaScript in one file all.js and the JVM runs the JavaScript code from all.js.

Example 2

Now let’s look at another example that shows how to convert between Haskell and Java lists:

{-# LANGUAGE ForeignFunctionInterface #-}
{-# LANGUAGE JavaScriptFFI #-}
{-# LANGUAGE UnliftedFFITypes #-}
{-# LANGUAGE GHCForeignImportPrim #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeSynonymInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DataKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE PolyKinds #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeFamilies #-}

module Main where

import Control.Monad.ST
import GHCJS.Types
import GHCJS.Foreign
import GHCJS.Prim
import Data.Typeable
import GHC.ST 

data MutabilityType s = Mutable
                      | Immutable
                      | STMutable s

data IsItMutable = IsImmutable
                 | IsMutable

-- Copied from GHCJS.Internal.Types. Not sure why this is not exposed.
type family Mutability (a :: MutabilityType s) :: IsItMutable where
  Mutability Immutable     = IsImmutable
  Mutability Mutable       = IsMutable
  Mutability (STMutable s) = IsMutable

{- java.util.ArrayList class and its methods -}
newtype SomeArrayList (a :: MutabilityType s) = SomeArrayList JSVal deriving Typeable
type ArrayList           = SomeArrayList Immutable
type MutableArrayList    = SomeArrayList Mutable
type STArrayList s      = SomeArrayList (STMutable s)

instance IsJSVal (SomeArrayList m)

-- ArrayList Constructor
foreign import javascript unsafe "new $1()"
  arrayList_new :: JType -> ST s (STArrayList s) 

-- Adds an element to ArrayList
foreign import javascript unsafe "$2.add($1)"
  arrayList_add :: JSVal ->  STArrayList s -> ST s ()

{- java.util.Iterator class and its methods -}
newtype SomeIterator (a :: MutabilityType s) = SomeIterator JSVal deriving Typeable
type Iterator            = SomeIterator Immutable
type MutableIterator     = SomeIterator Mutable
type STIterator s        = SomeIterator (STMutable s)

instance IsJSVal (SomeIterator m)

-- Create an Iterator from an ArrayList
foreign import javascript unsafe "$1.iterator()"
  iterator :: STArrayList s -> ST s (STIterator s)

foreign import javascript unsafe "$1.hasNext()"
  iterator_hasNext :: STIterator s -> ST s Bool

foreign import javascript unsafe "$1.next()"
  iterator_next :: STIterator s -> ST s JSVal

{- Other Nashorn imports -}

-- Represents a Java type
newtype JType = JType JSVal

foreign import javascript unsafe "java.lang.System.out.println($1)"
  jprintln :: JSVal -> IO ()

foreign import javascript unsafe "java.lang.System.exit($1)"
  sysexit :: Int -> IO ()

-- Imports a Java class
foreign import javascript unsafe "Java.type($1)"
  jimport :: JSVal -> JType 

{- Create an instance of Java's ArrayList from Haskell's list -}
listToArrayList :: [JSVal] -> ST s (STArrayList s)
listToArrayList xs = do
    let arrayListClass = jimport $ toJSString "java.util.ArrayList"
    arrList <- arrayList_new arrayListClass
    go xs arrList
  where
    go [] arrList = return arrList
    go (x:xs) arrList = do
      arrayList_add x arrList
      go xs arrList

{- Create Haskell's list from Java's Iterator -}
iteratorToList :: STIterator s -> ST s [JSVal]
iteratorToList itr = reverse <$> go [] where
  go acc = do
    hasNext <- iterator_hasNext itr
    if hasNext
      then do
        next <- iterator_next itr
        go (next: acc)
      else
        return acc

-- Nashorn doesn't provide default console object. Haskell's putStrLn logs to the console.
foreign import javascript unsafe "console={ \
    \ log: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ info: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ warn: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ debug: function(s) { java.lang.System.out.print(s); },\
    \ error: function(s) { java.lang.System.err.print(s); }\
    \ }"
  setupConsole :: IO ()

demo = runST $ do
  jlist <- listToArrayList . map toJSInt $ [1..5]
  iterator jlist >>= iteratorToList
 
main = do
  setupConsole
  mapM_ (putStrLn . show . fromJSInt) demo
  sysexit 0

In the code above, two Java types are used: java.util.ArrayList and java.util.Iterator.

Importing a Java class

A Java class can be imported with Java.type(className) Nashorn JavaScript code. Line 80 defines the corresponding Haskell FFI function:

-- Imports a Java class
foreign import javascript unsafe "Java.type($1)"
  jimport :: JSVal -> JType

Creating an instance of a Java class

An instance can be created by invoking the constructor on the Java class with new. Here is the corresponding FFI:

-- ArrayList Constructor
foreign import javascript unsafe "new $1()"
  arrayList_new :: JType -> ST s (STArrayList s)

It takes the ArrayList class and invokes the dafault ArrayList constructor to return an instance of it. In the same way, we can create FFI functions for ArrayList.add and ArrayList.iterator to return an Java Iterator instance.

The function listToArrayList takes a Haskell list and return an instance of Java ArrayList. As the java list is mutable, it is returned as STArrayList s inside ST. This function first creates an instance of ArrayList by invoking the Java constructor and then calls ArrayList.add to add items from Haskell list to the ArrayList.

In the similar way, the function iteratorToList takes a Java iterator and returns Haskell list by extracting items from the iterator by invoking corresponding FFI functions for Iterator.hasNext and Iterator.next.

Building with Stack

It is easy to setup a GHCJS project with Stack so that we can add other dependencies easily and build it for GHCJS. With the above code in a stack project “haskell-jvm-hello”, we can build it with stack build and run it with jjs:

$ stack build
haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0: unregistering (local file changes: app/Main.hs)
haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0: build
Preprocessing library haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0...
In-place registering haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0...
Preprocessing executable 'haskell-jvm-hello-exe' for
haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0...
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( app/Main.hs, .stack-work/dist/x86_64-linux/Cabal-1.22.4.0_ghcjs/build/haskell-jvm-hello-exe/haskell-jvm-hello-exe-tmp/Main.js_o )
Linking .stack-work/dist/x86_64-linux/Cabal-1.22.4.0_ghcjs/build/haskell-jvm-hello-exe/haskell-jvm-hello-exe.jsexe (Main)
haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0: copy/register
Installing library in
/workspace/haskell-jvm-hello/.stack-work/install/x86_64-linux/lts-3.12/ghcjs-0.2.0_ghc-7.10.3/lib/x86_64-linux-ghcjs-0.2.0-ghc7_10_3/haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0-7MA0h74rERuEwiJY2TRuHx
Installing executable(s) in
/workspace/haskell-jvm-hello/.stack-work/install/x86_64-linux/lts-3.12/ghcjs-0.2.0_ghc-7.10.3/bin
Warning: the following files would be used as linker inputs, but linking is not being done: .stack-work/dist/x86_64-linux/Cabal-1.22.4.0_ghcjs/build/haskell-jvm-hello-exe/haskell-jvm-hello-exe
Registering haskell-jvm-hello-0.1.0.0...

$ jjs .stack-work/dist/x86_64-linux/Cabal-1.22.4.0_ghcjs/build/haskell-jvm-hello-exe/haskell-jvm-hello-exe.jsexe/all.js
1
2
3
4
5

Java’s Nashorn JavaScript engine opens up few more ways for the JVM to be polyglot and it is so good to have one of the best languages, Haskell, on the JVM. Actually it should also be possible to run PureScript as well in this way on the JVM but that is for another day. Happy Haskelling!

 Haskell  JVM  Nashorn  GHCJS

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