Jasmin Home Page
Jon Meyer
March 1997

Jasmin is a Java Assembler Interface. It takes ASCII descriptions for Java classes, written in a simple assembler-like syntax and using the Java Virtual Machine instruction set. It converts them into binary Java class files suitable for loading into a Java interpreter.

  #### Java Virtual Machine

  Jasmin was written as the companion to the book "Java Virtual Machine", published by O'Reilly, written by Troy Downing and myself. (available now!) (see cover).

#### Documentation

If you want to learn more about Jasmin, see:

About Jasmin.
  Describes what Jasmin is, why I wrote Jasmin, and the kinds of people who might be interested in Jasmin.

Jasmin Guide
  A basic Jasmin user guide. It describes the syntax of the assembler, and how to use it.

README
  The Jasmin README file that comes with the Jasmin distribution.

NEW! - Java Virtual Machine Instruction Reference
  A quick reference for all of the JVM instructions.

Other useful sources are:

NEW! Sun's Official Java Virtual Machine Specification (Acrobat/Postscript)
  Addison Wesley has published a book on the Java Virtual Machine Specification, which is a detailed analysis of the structure of the JVM. Available in all good bookshops. See here for more details.

Old VM Spec
  Here is an old copy of the Java Virtual Machine spec I found lying around.

KAFFE
  Check out this free Java Virtual Machine Implementation.

Programming Languages for the Java Virtual Machine
  An overview of programming languages and tools that target the Java Virtual Machine.

Under the Hood: The lean, mean, virtual machine
  An article describing the Java Virtual Machine, including a cool simulation applet.

Jasmin uses Java Cup, and JAS internally, so you should check out these pages too.

## Downloading Jasmin

You can obtain Jasmin 1.0 from:

  http://cat.nyu.edu/meyer/jasmin/jasmin-1.06.tar.gz (approx 410K)

or from:

  http://cat.nyu.edu/meyer/jasmin/jasmin.zip (approx 600K)

This version of Jasmin is written in Java, and needs Sun's JDK 1.0 to run or equivalent. I have tested it under Solaris, SGI and Windows 95 (using Symantec Cafe and Visual J++).

For people who use systems with filename restrictions, a copy of the ZIP file containing the classes used by Jasmin is available here.

#### Register For Updates!!!

If you find Jasmin useful, send me email at meyer@cs.nyu.edu and I will add your name to the list of people informed when new versions and bug fixes become available.

#### Questions, Problems

If you have any questions or problems, you can email me at: meyer@cs.nyu.edu.

#### JVM Disassembler also available

Shawn Silverman has created a disassembler that can output files in the Jasmin syntax. This lets you take a Java class file, disassemble it, modify the VM code, and reassemble it. Versions for Windows and Solaris are available. See here.

There is also a Perl version of the disassembler in the pipeline, and one day I'll get down and write one myself!

#### Alternative Assembler

Jason Hunt (djh4@cs.wustl.edu) has also written a Java assembler, which you may want to check out. See http://siesta.cs.wustl.edu/~djh4/).

#### Still in Progress

I am working on JAM (Java Abstract Machine) - a thin layer over the JVM that provides an easy-to-use API to the JVM. People interested in the specs for this should email me.

#### Archive and FAQ

I am currently composing an archive of email on Jasmin, and other useful notes. I expect to combine these into a FAQ at some stage.

Copyright (1996) Jonathan Meyer, under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

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