                                                    ~ BALLERINA ~
                                                    =============


PREREQUISITES
-------------

Ballerina requires JRE 17.
Check https://adoptopenjdk.net/releases.html?variant=openjdk21&jvmVariant=hotspot to download the JRE relevant to your system.
This is the Java version we have used when testing Ballerina.


INSTALLING BALLERINA
--------------------

- Unzip the Ballerina archive in the desired directory. This will be the Ballerina installation directory.

- Set the path of the installation directory to the BALLERINA_HOME environment variable.

- Add the `<BALLERINA_HOME>/bin` path to your system's path variable.


- If you have installed Java 21 already, you are all set! Just make sure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set correctly.

- If you do not have Java 21 or if you have a different version of Java, download a compatible JRE 17 version as specified in the prerequisites.

    - To set the obtained JRE as the one used by Ballerina, extract the downloaded JRE `zip/tar.gz` to the `<BALLERINA_HOME>/dependencies/jdk-21.0.5+11-jre` directory.
    - Once you are done, the directory structure should look exactly like the following:
        <BALLERINA_HOME>/dependencies/
        └── jdk-21.0.5+11-jre
            ├── bin
            ├── bundle
            ├── conf
            ├── legal
            ├── lib
            ├── man
            └── release
    - Ensure that the directory which contains the JRE is named "jdk-21.0.5+11-jre"

- Finally, to verify whether Ballerina is installed properly, you can run the `bal version` command. If Ballerina was installed correctly, you should see an output similar to the following:
    $ bal version
    Ballerina Swan Lake Alpha 1
    Language specification v2020-12-17
    Update Tool 0.8.14


INSTALLING THE VS CODE PLUGIN
-----------------------------

- The VS Code plugin for Ballerina can be installed through the VS Code Marketplace. Look up "Ballerina" in the Marketplace and you should get the download page for the Ballerina plugin.

** Note **: For the VS Code plugin to work, the BALLERINA_HOME environment variable should be set and the <BALLERINA_HOME>/bin added to the path variable of the system.


DOCUMENTATION
-------------

The following resources should help you get up and running with Ballerina:

- Ballerina by Example: https://ballerina.io/learn/by-example

- Ballerina How-To guides: https://ballerina.io/learn/

- Ballerina standard library API docs: https://ballerina.io/learn/api-docs/ballerina

- Ballerina language specification: https://ballerina.io/spec
