Because building Linux libraries for Android is a pain in the ass.
The goal of the hemroid project is to simplify the life of an Android developer
making use of the NDK. Managing APIs x ABIs x version combos, not to mention
configuration flags and the little nits of functionality that are standard in Linux
but not available under some versions of Android, as well as the weirdness
that occurs when cross compiling is daunting. hemroid is designed to simplify
all of that.
The vision is to create a tool that works similarly to Homebrew on OSX or apt on
Linux.
hemroid - package manager for android
Usage:
hemroid <command> <options> <pkgs>
Where:
<command> is one of:
install
remove
pkginfo
dependencies
hemroid install [--abi=<abi>] [--api=<api>] [--dirty] [--quiet] [--verbose] <pkgs>
Installs space-delimted packages, recursively installing dependencies.
--abi=<abi> install for ABI <abi> only (default: all ABIs)
--api=<api> override API level (default: max(package min,NDK min))
--dirty Do not clean up sandbox when done (debug only)
--verbose Echo make output to stdout
--quiet Suppress info messages
hemroid remove [--abi=<abi>] [--clean] [--quiet] <pkgs>
Removes space-delimted packages. This does not recurse dependencies.
--abi=<abi> remove for ABI <abi> only (default: all ABIs)
--clean Delete saved repo, will force fresh rebuild on next install
--quiet Suppress info messages
hemroid pkginfo [--abi=<abi>] [--api=<api>] [--quiet] <pkgs>
Displays package information for space-delimted packages. The output is in JSON
format and is not particularly readable for humans. Future versions will be formatted
in English.
--abi=<abi> Information for ABI <abi> only (default: all ABIs)
--api=<api> override API level (default: max(package min,NDK min))
--quiet Suppress info messages
hemroid dependencies [--abi=<abi>] [--api=<api>] [--quiet] <pkgs>
Displays dependency information for space-delimted packages. The output is in JSON
format and is not particularly readable for humans. Future versions will be formatted
in English.
--abi=<abi> Dependencies for ABI <abi> only (default: all ABIs)
--api=<api> override API level (default: max(package min,NDK min))
--quiet Suppress info messages
<pkgs> is one or more of:
atk cairo enchant expat ffi fontconfig freetype2 gdk-pixbuf gettext glib-2 glib-
networking gmp gnutls gst-plugins-base gstreamer gtk+-3 harfbuzz hemroid
hicolor-icon-theme hyphen iconv icu javascriptcore libepoxy libjpeg-turbo
libnotify libpng libsecret libsoup libtasn1 libwebp libxml2 libxslt nettle
openssl pango pixman sqlite3 webkitgtk+
<abi> is one or more of:
armeabi armeabi-v7a arm64-v8a x86 x86_64 mips mips64
Supported <api> depends on ABI, what the package supports, and the NDK.
Minimum <api> for each ABI:
x86_64 21
x86 9
armeabi-v7a 3
armeabi 3
mips64 21
arm64-v8a 21
mips 9
Unless you know exactly what you're doing, you shouldn't set <api>. Use
the default.
Each package contains an Android.mk file that does the dirty work. In your
project's JNI directory, create your own Android.mk. Here is an example
from the AndroidJSCore project:
LOCAL_PATH := $(call my-dir)
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
LOCAL_MODULE := android-js-core
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := DispatchQueue.cpp \
JSContext.cpp \
JSObject.cpp \
JSString.cpp \
JSValue.cpp \
threadqueue.c
HEMROID_MODULES := javascriptcore_$(TARGET_ARCH_ABI) icustub_$(TARGET_ARCH_ABI)
LOCAL_SHARED_LIBRARIES := $(HEMROID_MODULES)
LOCAL_CPPFLAGS := -std=c++11
LOCAL_LDFLAGS := -llog
include $(BUILD_SHARED_LIBRARY)
$(call import-module, hemroid)
$(call import-module, javascriptcore)
$(call import-module, icu/icustub)
This example includes the javascriptcore package and icu with the icudata stubbed out. It
looks like your standard NDK makefile. To work propertly, you need to set the HEMROID_MODULES target.
Simply include the package names that you want with _$(TARGET_ARCH_ABI) appended. Then make
sure that $(HEMROID_MODULES) is included in LOCAL_SHARED_LIBRARIES.
You will also need to import the hemroid module and the modules from the packages you've chosen.
Now when you run ndk-build, your code will be compiled against the requested libraries (and their
dependencies).
Note, three environment variables need to be set:
ANDROID_SDK - Path to the Android SDK
ANDROID_NDK - Path to the Android NDK
NDK_MODULE_PATH - Path to /hemroid/packages
Once ndk-build is complete, some Java code will be created in the src/main/java/org/liquidplayer/hemroid/
directory. This code must be called before the libraries are used. For simplicity, a HemroidApplication
class is created, and you can simply override the Application class and this will all be handled for you.
In your AndroidManifest.xml, add the property android:name="org.liquidplayer.hemroid.HemroidApplication"
to the <application /> tag. That is all that is required to handle initialization.
- Some projects can take an insanely long time to build.
webkitgtk+for instance, takes at least 90 minutes for each ABI. But once it is built properly, a repository is created and installation happens quickly. - Some builds may fail due to missing host-side requirements. Look at
/tmp/hemroid.burstto examine failures. You may need to install some tools on your host. - If a build fails, even a long one, there is no way to restart it from where you left off. I have lost weeks of my life to WebKit because of this. Future versions may support this better.
hemroidworks on both Mac OSX (El Capitan is verified) and Linux (Ubuntu 14.4 LTS), though there are sometimes quirks in each. As of this writing, for instance,harfbuzzwill fail to build the first time on Linux only, but if you re-run it it will complete the second time. I don't know why (well that's not true -- I can see the bug, but I am not sure what is causing it).hemroidis a work in progress. Don't use it unless you are a hacker and ready to roll up your sleeves to figure out what's going on. Please contribute to this project. It will only get better with help from the community.