Project Scaffolding

The kreate-jni-initialize task creates the native C++ project structure on first run. It is registered automatically when JNI is enabled and runs as a dependency of kreate-jni-build.

What Gets Generated

Given a project named example, Kreate creates the following structure under the configured projectDirectory:

jni/
└── example/
    ├── CMakeLists.txt      # CMake build definition
    └── src/
        └── example.cpp     # Placeholder C++ source file

All files are only written if they do not already exist. Running the task on an existing project is safe and idempotent.

Generated `CMakeLists.txt`

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)
project(example CXX)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
set(CMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE ON)

find_package(JNI REQUIRED)

file(GLOB EXAMPLE_SOURCES "src/*.cpp" "src/*.cc")

add_library(example SHARED ${EXAMPLE_SOURCES})
target_include_directories(example PRIVATE ${JNI_INCLUDE_DIRS} include)
target_link_libraries(example PRIVATE ${JNI_LIBRARIES})

Key properties of the generated configuration:

C++17 standard enforced (CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
Position-independent code enabled (-fPIC) for shared library compatibility
JNI headers located and linked automatically via find_package(JNI REQUIRED)
All .cpp and .cc files under src/ are included via file(GLOB ...)
An optional include/ directory is pre-wired for custom headers

Generated Placeholder Source

#include <jni.h>

// Placeholder source for JNI project "example".
// Implement your native methods here.

This file ensures CMake has at least one translation unit to compile on the first build invocation. Replace its content with your actual JNI function implementations.

Running the Task Manually

./gradlew kreate-jni-initialize

Customizing the CMake Configuration

After the initial scaffold, CMakeLists.txt is yours to modify freely. Kreate never overwrites an existing CMakeLists.txt, so any changes you make are preserved across builds.

Common customizations include:

Adding subdirectories with add_subdirectory()
Linking additional system or third-party libraries with target_link_libraries()
Adding compile definitions with target_compile_definitions()
Including additional header search paths with target_include_directories()

26 April 2026