JSoar is a pure Java implementation of the Soar kernel. See the JSoar Wiki for more information. The User's Guide is a good place to start.

Obtaining JSoar

To add a dependency on JSoar using Maven or gradle, include the following dependencies as needed. A typical project may include jsoar-core, jsoar-debugger, jsoar-tcl, and jsoar-soarunit.

We no longer provide pre-built binaries on github, but they can be downloaded from maven central if desired. Building from source is also straightforward (see below).

JSoar Core (required):

• Maven

  <dependency>
  <groupId>com.soartech</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsoar-core</artifactId>
  <version>${jsoar.version}</version>
  </dependency>

• Gradle

  dependencies {
  compile 'com.soartech:jsoar-core:$jsoarVersion'
  }

Support for Tcl in Soar code:

• Maven

  <dependency>
  <groupId>com.soartech</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsoar-tcl</artifactId>
  <version>${jsoar.version}</version>
  </dependency>

• Gradle

  dependencies {
  compile 'com.soartech:jsoar-tcl:$jsoarVersion'
  }

JSoar debugger:

• Maven

  <dependency>
  <groupId>com.soartech</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsoar-debugger</artifactId>
  <version>${jsoar.version}</version>
  </dependency>

• Gradle

  dependencies {
  compile 'com.soartech:jsoar-debugger:$jsoarVersion'
  }

SoarUnit:

• Maven

  <dependency>
  <groupId>com.soartech</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsoar-soarunit</artifactId>
  <version>${jsoar.version}</version>
  </dependency>

• Gradle

  dependencies {
  compile 'com.soartech:jsoar-soarunit:$jsoarVersion'
  }

Remote Web-Based Debugging Support:

• Maven

  <dependency>
  <groupId>com.soartech</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsoar-legilimens</artifactId>
  <version>${jsoar.version}</version>
  </dependency>

• Gradle

  dependencies {
  compile 'com.soartech:jsoar-legilimens:$jsoarVersion'
  }

The following subprojects are examples and tools that it probably doesn't make sense to depend on:

• JSoar Demos has a number of examples of using JSoar that you can look at.
• JSoar Repl is a simple command line REPL.
• JSoar Performance Testing is designed to support repeatable tests across JSoar and CSoar, supporting multiple versions of each, to support performance comparisons.

Developer info

Note that the maven branch is now the main branch. The master branch is no longer maintained.

There is also an Android branch, which maintains an Android-compatible version.

Coding Conventions

The coding conventions for the JSoar codebase are stored as Eclipse formatter rules in eclipse-formatter.xml. To import:

Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Code Style -> Formatter -> Import ...

The basic rules are:

• NO TABS
• 4 spaces of indentation
• Opening braces on their own line

Maven Build

Builds are performed from the root directory.

• To just do a build, run mvn package
• To do a build and install, which includes generating javadocs, run mvn install
• To just build javadocs, run mvn javadoc:aggregate

Jars will end up in the target directories of the various projects (and in your local .m2 cache, if you install). Javadocs will end up in the top-level target/site directory.

Maven Releases

To create a release using the Maven Release plugin:

• Make sure you have a github account that has permission to commit to the jsoar repo.

• Make sure you have ossrh server setup in your settings.xml with the soartech-releases account.

• To build using the poms as-is, you should use a Java 11 JDK. More recent JDKs will work, but without additional changes to the poms, they may not produce jar files that can be linked with Java 11 applications.

• Make sure everything is fully merged and all commits are pushed.

• mvn -Dusername=<yourGithubUsername> release:prepare -DdryRun=true

  • This runs through all the questions (if you're not sure, accept all the default answers), make sure everything builds, and creates temp versions of the pom files showing what changes will be made.
  • If a prompt doesn't pop up for your signing password, you may have to force gpg/kleopatra to wake up. Try executing this from the command line: echo "test" | gpg --clearsign. If that works, you should be good to go. If not, then something is probably wrong with your gpg install.

• If everything looks good in the dry run:

  • mvn -Dusername=<yourGithubUsername> release:clean
    • This removes all the temp files from the dry run
  • mvn -Dusername=<yourGithubUsername> release:prepare
    • You will answer all the questions again
    • This will change the current poms to the release version, commit and tag that, and then change the poms to the next snapshot version and commit that. Then it will push the commits to github.
  • mvn -Dusername=<yourGithubUsername> release:perform
    • This will build everything and upload the release jars to Maven Central's staging repo (make sure you have credentials for soartech-releases setup in your maven settings.xml). They should be accessible in Maven Central proper some time after that (if automated, which it currently is not, nominally 20 mins, but it could take hours. Otherwise the release must be done manually). There's no need to wait for things to show up on Maven Central before continuing.
      • Manual promotion from the staging repo: log into https://oss.sonatype.org/#stagingRepositories, check the Content tab and make sure it looks good, then click the Close button at the top. Once closing has completed all of its checks it will be closed (you may have to refresh to see this). Then click the Release button at the top put it onto Maven Central. It may take a little while for it to actually appear in search results, and longer for the online javadocs to update.
  • mvn deploy
    • This will put the new snapshot on SoarTech's nexus (assuming you have the proper setup to access that, which all SoarTech employees should have).

If something goes wrong when running any of the release commands, you can try mvn -Dusername=<yourGithubUsername> release:rollback, which will attempt to undo the changes. This should work as long as you haven't done a release:clean. For more info, see the documentation.

If everything is good, you can do a mvn release:clean to remove all the intermediate files that the release plugin created. These should definitely not be committed.

Don't forget to update the version badge at the top of the readme.

Acknowledgments / History

JSoar was originally envisioned and implemented by Dave Ray (and indeed, the vast majority of the code is still Dave's). JSoar started out on Google Code in SVN, was converted to Mercurial and then Git, and then moved to Dave's github site. Today JSoar is primarily maintained by Soar Technology LLC.