Amazon Ion Java

A Java implementation of the Ion data notation.

Setup

This repository contains a git submodule called ion-tests, which holds test data used by ion-java's unit tests.

The easiest way to clone the ion-java repository and initialize its ion-tests submodule is to run the following command.

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/amazon-ion/ion-java.git ion-java

Alternatively, the submodule may be initialized independently from the clone by running the following commands.

$ git submodule init
$ git submodule update

The submodule points to the tip of the branch of the ion-tests repository specified in ion-java's .gitmodules file.

ion-java may now be built and installed into the local Maven repository with the following command.

$ ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal

Pulling in Upstream Changes

To pull upstream changes into ion-java, start with a simple git pull. This will pull in any changes to ion-java itself (including any changes to its .gitmodules file), but not any changes to the ion-tests submodule. To make sure the submodule is up-to-date, use the following command.

$ git submodule update --remote

This will fetch and update the ion-tests submodule from the ion-tests branch currently specified in the .gitmodules file.

For detailed walkthroughs of git submodule usage, see the Git Tools documentation.

Depending on the Library

To start using ion-java in your code with Maven, insert the following dependency into your project's pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazon.ion</groupId>
  <artifactId>ion-java</artifactId>
  <version>1.9.6</version>
</dependency>

For Gradle (Kotlin DSL), use:

dependencies {
    implementation("com.amazon.ion:ion-java:1.9.6")
}

Legacy group id

Originally ion-java was published using the group id software.amazon.ion. Since 1.4.0 the official groupId was changed to com.amazon.ion to be consistent with other Amazon open source libraries. We still maintain the legacy group id but strongly encourage users to migrate to the official one.

Using the Library

A great way to get started is to use the Ion cookbook. The API documentation will give a lot of detailed information about how to use the library.