Returning an arraylist of string from Native java to JNI

Question

ArrayList<String> myArraylist;          

public ArrayList<String> getData(){
    myArraylist = new ArrayList<String>();         
    myArraylist.add("1267982563");
    myArraylist.add("2345678");
    myArraylist.add("5432789");
    return myArraylist;
}

How to get the each items from the above method in JNI side and Push to vector and return from the JNI to other CPP calls in the JNI layer.

Answer 1

Convert ArrayList to std::vector<std::string>:

jclass java_util_ArrayList;
jmethodID java_util_ArrayList_;
jmethodID java_util_ArrayList_size;
jmethodID java_util_ArrayList_get;
jmethodID java_util_ArrayList_add;
thread_local JNIEnv *env;

void init() {
  java_util_ArrayList      = static_cast<jclass>(env->NewGlobalRef(env->FindClass("java/util/ArrayList")));
  java_util_ArrayList_     = env->GetMethodID(java_util_ArrayList, "<init>", "(I)V");
  java_util_ArrayList_size = env->GetMethodID (java_util_ArrayList, "size", "()I");
  java_util_ArrayList_get  = env->GetMethodID(java_util_ArrayList, "get", "(I)Ljava/lang/Object;");
  java_util_ArrayList_add  = env->GetMethodID(java_util_ArrayList, "add", "(Ljava/lang/Object;)Z");
}

std::vector<std::string> java2cpp(jobject arrayList) {
  jint len = env->CallIntMethod(arrayList, java_util_ArrayList_size);
  std::vector<std::string> result;
  result.reserve(len);
  for (jint i=0; i<len; i++) {
    jstring element = static_cast<jstring>(env->CallObjectMethod(arrayList, java_util_ArrayList_get, i));
    const char *pchars = env->GetStringUTFChars(element, nullptr);
    result.emplace_back(pchars);
    env->ReleaseStringUTFChars(element, pchars);
    env->DeleteLocalRef(element);
  }
}

Push ArrayList from JNI back to Java

If you don't modify this list in JNI, then the best strategy would be to simply keep a global reference to it somewhere in your native code. If you modify it a little, keep this jobject always up-to-date (you will probably need the methods java_util_ArrayList_add or java_util_ArrayList_set).

If you choose to reconstruct the list from scratch the vector, you will unwind the above method:

jobject cpp2java(std::vector<std::string> vector) {
  jobject result = env->NewObject(java_util_ArrayList, java_util_ArrayList_, vector.size());
  for (std::string s: vector) {
    jstring element = env->NewStringUTF(s.c_str());
    env->CallBooleanMethod(result, java_util_ArrayList_add, element);
    env->DeleteLocalRef(element);
  }
  return result;
}

At any rate, be careful with threads when you work with Jni, always attach your native threads and detach before the native thread is destroyed.