===== THE PROJECT IS NOT USABLE YET =====

Python for android is a project to create your own Python distribution including the modules you want, and create an apk including python, libs, and your application.

In terms of comparaison, you can check how Python for android can be useful compared to other projects.

WARNING: the current version is working only on Ubuntu oneiric (11.10). We don't provide support on other platform. If it doesn't work, send us patch, not bug report.

You need the minimal environment for building python. Note that other libraries might need other tools:

sudo apt-get install build-essential patch

You must have android SDK and NDK. You can download them at:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

If it's your very first time into android sdk, don't forget to follow documentation for recommended components at:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html#which

    You need to download at least one platform into your environment, so
    that you will be able to compile your application and set up an Android
    Virtual Device (AVD) to run it on (in the emulator). To start with,
    just download the latest version of the platform. Later, if you plan to
    publish your application, you will want to download other platforms as
    well, so that you can test your application on the full range of
    Android platform versions that your application supports.

After installing them, export both installation path, ndk version and api to use:

export ANDROIDSDK=/path/to/android-sdk
export ANDROIDNDK=/path/to/android-ndk
export ANDROIDNDKVER=rX
export ANDROIDAPI=X

# example
export ANDROIDSDK="/home/tito/code/android/android-sdk-linux_86"
export ANDROIDNDK="/home/tito/code/android/android-ndk-r7"
export ANDROIDNDKVER=r7
export ANDROIDAPI=14

Step 1, compile the toolchain:

./distribute.sh -m "kivy"

After a long time, you'll get a "dist/default" directory containing all the compiled libraries and build.py script to package your application using thoses libraries.

Step 2, package your application:

cd dist/default
./build.py --package org.test.touchtracer --name touchtracer \
--version 1.0 --dir ~/code/kivy/examples/demo/touchtracer installd

Example of other toolchain:

./distribute.sh -m "pil kivy"
./distribute.sh -m "openssl python"

# create another distribution in a directory bleh
./distribute.sh -m "openssl kivy" -d bleh
cd dist/bleh
./build.py ...

Available options:

-d directory           Name of the distribution directory
-h                     Show this help
-l                     Show a list of available modules
-m 'mod1 mod2'         Modules to include

List of available modules: jpeg pil png sdl sqlite3 pygame kivy android

The up-to-date list is available at: https://github.com/tito/python-for-android/tree/master/recipes

Only hostpython and python are 2 mandatory recipes, used for building hostpython / target python libraries.

A recipe is a script that contain the "definition" of a module to compile. The directory layout of a recipe for a <modulename> is something like:

python-for-android/recipes/<modulename>/recipe.sh
python-for-android/recipes/<modulename>/patches/
python-for-android/recipes/<modulename>/patches/fix-path.patch

When building, all the recipe build must go to:

python-for-android/build/<modulename>/<archiveroot>

For example, if you want to create a recipe for sdl, do:

cd python-for-android/recipes
mkdir sdl
cp recipe.sh.tmpl sdl/recipe.sh
sed -i 's#XXX#sdl#' sdl/recipe.sh

Then, edit the sdl/recipe.sh to adjust other information (version, url) and complete build function.

• PGS4A: http://pygame.renpy.org/
• Android scripting: http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
• Python on a chip: http://code.google.com/p/python-on-a-chip/

• jni/Android.mk must not include ttf/image/mixer if not asked by the user
• application should be automatically generated (Android.mk etc...)
• Python try always to import name.so, namemodule.so, name.py, name.pyo ?
• restore libpymodules.so loading to reduce the number of dlopen.
• if MODULES= change, the old build need to be cleaned