Update 26/5/9: Updated for last night’s source with the JIBX libraries, and note on the version of XCode.

So, I’ve just got my laptop back after a brief separation. What does one do?

Compile the JDK, of course!

For those unfamiliar with the situation, Apple hate Java developers. Well, one suspects they do. Apple being Apple, one never knows. We could get Java 1.6.0_12 with 32bit support tomorrow, or it could never come. You’ll never know until it appears.

Luckily, Landon Fuller loves us. Which Apple play with their iPhones, he beat the OpenJDK into submission on OS X. Only drawback – Swing is X11 based. But still, it’s JDK6 for 10.4, 10.5 and in both 32 and 64bit, and available as SoyLatte.

This work has all found its way back into the trunk, and so JDK7 is buildable on the Mac (usually). The only catch: the instructions are scattered, and often vary slightly. So I’m documenting them here for tonight’s build, mostly for my reference.

Thanks go to Landon Fuller and Stephen Bannasch for putting these together.

1. Get version 3.1 (or above, presumably) of XCode.

2. Download SoyLatte. I found the JDK7 build Landon released in 2008 did not work as a bootstrap.

3. Get Mercurial

sudo port install mercurial +bash_completion

4. Install the Forest extension

hg clone http://bitbucket.org/pmezard/hgforest-crew

You’ll need to point Mercurial at the hgforest-crew directory, by adding the following to ~/.hgrc:

[extensions]
hgext.forest=/opt/hgforest-crew/forest.py

5. Grab Kurt Miller’s BSD binary plugs:

wget http://www.intricatesoftware.com/distfiles/jdk-7-icedtea-plugs-1.6b.tar.gz

6. Get the JIBX libraries (version 1.1.5) from:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=69358&package_id=68290

7. Check out the OpenJDK:

hg fclone http://hg.openjdk.java.net/bsd-port/bsd-port

8. Place the following in build.sh in the bsd-port directory (modify as appropriate, depending on where you placed downloaded items):

LC_ALL=C
LANG=C
unset CLASSPATH
unset JAVA_HOME
make \
  ALT_BOOTDIR=/opt/soylatte16-i386-1.0.3/ \
  ALT_BINARY_PLUGS_PATH=/opt/jdk-7-icedtea-plugs \
  ALT_FREETYPE_HEADERS_PATH=/usr/X11R6/include \
  ALT_FREETYPE_LIB_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib \
  ALT_JIBX_LIBS_PATH=/opt/jibx/lib \
  ALT_CUPS_HEADERS_PATH=/usr/include \
  ANT_HOME=/usr/share/ant \
  NO_DOCS=true \
  HOTSPOT_BUILD_JOBS=2

9. Run, and cross your fingers!

10. I ran into a ld error (archive has no table of contents). Should you hit this, try the following and then rerun build.sh:

ranlib build/bsd-i586/tmp/java/fdlibm/obj/*.a

11. Copy bsd-port/build/bsd-i586/j2sdk-image somewhere useful – and you’re done!