A setting that works in an Apple M1 machine

[Roberto Posenato]

Hi,

I want to share my experience finding an updated setting for node-java in a machine with an Apple M1 processor.

I considered:

1. OpenJDK 11, 17, and 19
2. node 16 and 19
3. node-java 0.12.2

After some tests, I found that the most updated (w.r.t. the versions) configuration that works in all tests is:

1. OpenJDK 17.0.5
2. Node 16.19.0
3. node-java 0.12.2

Be aware that,

For installing node-java, it is necessary:

1. to install OpenJDK 17 (I suggest to use 'brew': `brew install  openjdk@17`)
2. to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable (
   
   'export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 17`')
3. to modify the Java installation coping '$JAVA_HOME/include/server/jni_md.h' in '$JAVA_HOME/include/'
   
4. to install 'node-gpy' package (`npm install -g node-gyp`)
5. to install node-java (`npm install java`), ignoring the compilation warnings.

For executing  a node application that uses node-java, it is necessary:

1. To set the environment variable 'DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES' to the path of JDK containing the library 'libjvm.dylib'
   For OpenJDK 17 installed through `brew`, the setting is
   `export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=${JAVA_HOME}/lib/server/libjvm.dylib`

Then, the application can be executed as usual: `node <appName>`

Roberto