Programmatically compile Kotlin code
Compile Kotlin in Kotlin, dawg!
![](../images/Kotlin_Icon.png)
So there's a very convenient artifact that seem to contain everything one needs in order to call a Kotlin compiler from within code and that's published for every Kotlin release. Use it with
compile group: 'org.jetbrains.kotlin', name: 'kotlin-compiler-embeddable', version: "$kotlin_version"
The following snippet instantiates a compiler, passes a file and some other properties to it and executes compilation. The resulting class file can be found in the given output directory.
val output = File("/home/myuser/out") K2JVMCompiler().run { val args = K2JVMCompilerArguments().apply { freeArgs = listOf(File("/home/myuser/KotlinFile.kt").absolutePath) loadBuiltInsFromDependencies = true destination = output.absolutePath classpath = System.getProperty("java.class.path") .split(System.getProperty("path.separator")) .filter { File(it).exists() && File(it).canRead() }.joinToString(":") noStdlib = true noReflect = true skipRuntimeVersionCheck = true reportPerf = true } // output.deleteOnExit() execImpl( PrintingMessageCollector( System.out, MessageRenderer.WITHOUT_PATHS, true), Services.EMPTY, args) }
The usage depends on the project where it is used, for example it coult be necessary to add a different classpath or add the classpath and a stdlib or something else.
EDIT: I'm sure I found this snippet, or a similar one in the internet, but I can't find it anymore. If you found it, let me know and I will link it as source.