Re: GForth in F-Droid repository?

[Bernd Paysan]

Am Montag, 3. August 2020, 01:34:32 CEST schrieb J. R. Haigh:
> Hi GForth team,
>       I didn't know that GForth runs on Android until just this evening, 
when I
> checked https://GForth.org for another reason. I'd be very keen to
> programme Android using GForth if I was able to install it and had
> documentation for how to develop applications with it. However, it seems
> that it's only available on Google Play, which I nolonger use, and is not
> available in the F-Droid repository. Furthermore, the manual contents
> listing does not even mention Android. Please could you consider targetting
> F-Droid?

The problem is that F-Droid wants to build the app from source, and, as far as 
I can see, F-Droid assumes that your app is a normal Java Android app, with a 
ant or gradle build.  We don't do that.  Gforth on Android is a (pretty 
contrived) make build, because what we build is a native C library, and Forth 
images, and have lots of interdependencies, need a running Gforth on the host, 
a modified version of swig for generating the C bindings from Forth, and 
whatnot.  Finally, we package that, including the dependency libraries, which 
are also build the make build system, and then, we run gradle on a small Java 
wrapper, which just is a replacement for the NativeActivity, which is too 
buggy.

I have no idea how to get that build process into F-Droid.

> https://f-droid.org/en/docs/FAQ_-_App_Developers/#how-do-i-get-my-app-inclu
> ded Please could you provide a demonstration application that I can use as a
> starting point to develop Android applications written in GForth?

net2o is such an example. The important part is AndroidManifest/apps, here, 
you can declare which Forth source you can provide as starting point.

You need a makefile with extra-install: as additional target (that installs 
the stuff you need on Android).  The makefile can build additional libraries 
and whatever other thing you need, just like Gforth's makefile.

I should add instructions how to build, but essentially, it is running BUILD-
FROM-SCRATCH in gforth/arch/arm/android. This assumes you have a working 
Android SDK build environment with gradle, including signing key. The BUILD-
FROM-SCRATCH also shows how you integrate your own app similar to net2o.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
net2o id: kQusJzA;7*?t=uy@X}1GWr!+0qqp_Cn176t4(dQ*
https://net2o.de/

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