Jython


Jython is an implementation of the Python programming language designed to run on the Java platform. The implementation was formerly known as JPython until 1999.

Overview

Jython programs can import and use any Java class. Except for some standard modules, Jython programs use Java classes instead of Python modules. Jython includes almost all of the modules in the standard Python programming language distribution, lacking only some of the modules implemented originally in C. For example, a user interface in Jython could be written with Swing, AWT or SWT. Jython compiles Python source code to Java bytecode either on demand or statically.

History

Jython was initially created in late 1997 to replace C with Java for performance-intensive code accessed by Python programs, moving to SourceForge in October 2000. The Python Software Foundation awarded a grant in January 2005. Jython 2.5 was released in June 2009.

Status and roadmap

The most recent release is Jython 2.7.2. It was released on 21 March 2020 and is compatible with Python 2.7.
Although Jython implements the Python language specification, it has some differences and incompatibilities with CPython, which is the reference implementation of Python.

License terms

From version 2.2 on, Jython is released under the Python Software Foundation License. Older versions are covered by the Jython 2.0, 2.1 license and the JPython 1.1.x Software License.
The command line interpreter is available under the Apache Software License.

Usage