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It took some time but I was able to build and run the serialization sample found at https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.serialization on the command line using the current kotlinc compiler and the kotlinx.serializtion.1.0.1 library.

Here are the direct links to the compilers and libs

kotlinc and kotlinc-native v1.4.20 https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/releases/tag/v1.4.20

Kotlinx.serialization v1.0.1 https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.serialization/releases/tag/v1.0.1

These both can also be found in the 1.4.20 releases blog post under the section titled How To Update: https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2020/11/kotlin-1-4-20-released/

After updating my path to point to the new compilers I still needed to build the serialization libs. This was as simple as running gradle build in the root directory of the unzipped kotlinx-serialization-1.0.1 folder. Make sure to set your JAVA-HOME system variable before you do this or it won’t work.

Once it's built you need to grab both the kotlinx-serialization-json-jvm-SNAPSHOT-1.0.1.jar and the kotlinx-serialization-core-jvm-SNAPSHOT-1.0.1.jar files and move them into the project directory. This definitely confused me because I had found a runtime lib for kotlinx serialization on the MVN repository site that was one jar file, but I wasn't seeing it after building the 1.0.1 libraries. Once I extracted the 1.0.1 runtime jar I found online, by renaming the .jar to .zip, it became apparent that it consisted of both the contents of the core and json jars. Don’t use the kotlinx-serialization-1.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar. This jar only contains a blank MANIFEST.ms file. You can find the kotlinx-serialization-core-jvm-1.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar in the kotlinx.serialization-1.0.1\core\build\libs folder and the kotlinx-serialization-json-jvm-1.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar in the kotlinx.serialization-1.0.1\formats\json\build\libs folder. anyways.

once you have the jars in your project folder you can build your project I included my cleanbuildandrun.sh shell script down below for easy reference. My first attempt 1) was to try and build the project without compiling it to a .jar library file. This was a complete failure. I got it to compile but running the project proved much harder. I was unable to tell kotlin where the libraries were at runtime. I tried so many different things Including trying to point it to a manifest file I created but nothing seemed to work. It seems you need to build an executable jar in order to make this work. which brings me to my second try 2). This is where I found more success.

Attempt 2)

• First you need to include the kotlinx-serialization-compiler-plugin.jar using the "-Xplugin" compiler flag. My understanding is that plugins are used to define annotations to the compiler like @Serializable. You can find this jar file in the lib folder inside the compiler you just downloaded. I copied this into my projects /lib folder next to the other jar files to make things self-contained and portable.

• Next you need to tell the compiler where to find the library classes you want to access using the "-classpath" or "-cp" compiler flag.

• Make sure to include kotlin runtime libraries using the "-include-runtime" compiler flag. This will bundle the kotlin standard class libraries within your jar so you don’t need to point at them during runtime.

• Last direct the compiler to build a jar file by providing the -d compiler flag with the name and extension of your soon to be .jar file. That’s it, your off compiling.