Pl/Java and GCJ

Hi,
I've made some very encouraging tests using The GNU version of Java known as
GCJ together with my Pl/Java implementation . At present I use GCJ just like
any other JVM, i.e. as an interpreter. This is not very optimal since GCJ
can compile all Java code into shared libraries just like it would compile C
or C++ code.

Putting it short, there's a tradeoff between adhering to the proposed
standard for SQL/Java mapping and using precompiled shared objects.
Pre-loaded modules loaded by the postmaster for instance, can never be
standard although it will help boost performance a great deal.

I guess that extending the proposed functionality is OK as long as attempts
are made to follow the standard whenever possible. To do this, I'd like some
advice concerning loading of shared libraries that are the result of a jar
file gcj compilation.

Today, using a "normal" JVM, I can install modules in the form of jar files
into the database. The modules can then be used dynamically and on demand by
Pl/Java. Using GCJ, I'd like to have the same semantics from a user
perspective (since they are modelled from the standard proposal) but behind
the scene the jar file should be compiled into a shared library which then
is made available to postgres. Question is, where do I store the shared
object, and how do I load it? Ideally, I'd like it to be stored in the
database and subject to normal grant/revoke rights etc. but dlopen() will
hardly look there. So instead, I'd like to store it somewhere in the
filesystem on the server where postmaster runs.

Is PostgreSQL doing something similar in other places today (i.e. install a
shared library on the server using SQL commands issued from the client)? Any
thoughts and/or ideas on this are greatly appreciated.

More on Pl/Java here: http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pljava

Kind Regards,

Thomas Hallgren