Let's see it work

Rather than simply telling you more about the improvements, let's demonstrate just how easy it is to add new features to Stata using Java.

We are going to create a new Stata command tryjava. Here it is in action:

. tryjava
  hello from java!

.    _

First, write a hello routine in Java and save it in a .java file:

                              
 file HelloFromJava.java 
   
import com.stata.sfi.*;
public class HelloFromJava
{
        public static int sayhello(String[] args)
        {
               SFIToolkit.displayln("Hello from java!") ;
               return(0) ;      // Stata return code
        }
}

Compile the .java file using the Java compiler.

For this step, you may want to copy sfi-api.jar from your Stata intallation to your current directory.

This produces a new file, HelloFromJava.class:

% javac -classpath sfi-api.jar HelloFromJava.java

Build a Java JAR file from this class file. You can name the JAR file whatever you wish. We will call it tryjava.jar:

% jar cvf tryjava.jar HelloFromJava.class

Copy the JAR file to your PERSONAL directory. (In Stata, type sysdir to find out where your PERSONAL directory is.)

Now write a Stata ado-file:

                              
 file tryjava.ado 
   
program tryjava
       version 15
       javacall HelloFromJava sayhello, jar(tryjava.jar)
end
                              
 file tryjava.ado 
 

That's it.

Tell me more

Learn more about Stata's programming features.

To read more, see [P] java, [P] javacall, and visit stata.com/java.