Compiling LiveCode for Android

Dependencies

Host system

We recommend performing Android builds on a Linux system. It is also possible to build for Android on Mac OS X.

The main non-standard dependency needed for building LiveCode is a Java Development Kit (JDK). At least JDK 7 is required.

Installing the Android SDK and NDK

LiveCode requires both the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) and Native Development Kit (NDK). You can download both from the Android Developers site.

Extract both the NDK and SDK to a suitable directory, e.g. ~/android/toolchain. For example, you would run:

mkdir -p ~/android/toolchain/android-sdk-linux
cd ~/android/toolchain

wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/android-ndk-r15-linux-x86_64.zip
wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/tools_r25.2.3-linux.zip

unzip android-ndk-r15-linux-x86_64.zip

pushd android-sdk-linux
unzip tools_r25.2.3-linux.zip
popd

Update the SDK:

android-sdk-linux/tools/android update sdk --no-ui

Setting up the ARM toolchain

Create a standalone toolchain (this simplifies setting up the build environment):

android-ndk-r15/build/tools/make_standalone_toolchain.py \
    --arch arm --api 16 --deprecated-headers \
    --install-dir ${HOME}/android/toolchain/standalone
```

Add a couple of symlinks to allow the engine configuration script to find the Android toolchain:

````bash
ln -s android-ndk-r15 android-ndk
ln -s android-sdk-linux android-sdk

Configuring LiveCode

Build environment

The Android build expects a large number of environment variables to be set. If the environment variables aren't set, the build process will attempt to guess sensible defaults. If you've set up the directory structure as described above, the make command should detect everything automatically and these variables shouldn't be necessary.

The following script will set up the environment variables correctly. You may need to edit it depending on where your JDK and ARM toolchain are installed:

ARCH=armv6
TRIPLE=arm-linux-androideabi

TOOLCHAIN=${HOME}/android/toolchain # Edit me!

# Java SDK
JAVA_SDK=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/ # Edit me!

# Build tools
BINDIR=$TOOLCHAIN/standalone/bin
COMMON_FLAGS="-target ${TRIPLE} -march=${ARCH}"

CC="${BINDIR}/${TRIPLE}-clang ${COMMON_FLAGS} -integrated-as"
CXX="${BINDIR}/${TRIPLE}-clang ${COMMON_FLAGS} -integrated-as"
LINK="${BINDIR}/${TRIPLE}-clang ${COMMON_FLAGS} -fuse-ld=bfd"
AR="${BINDIR}/${TRIPLE}-ar"

# Android platform information
ANDROID_NDK_VERSION=r15
ANDROID_NDK_PLATFORM_VERSION=16
ANDROID_API_VERSION=28
ANDROID_PLATFORM=android-${ANDROID_API_VERSION}
ANDROID_NDK=${TOOLCHAIN}/android-ndk-${ANDROID_NDK_VERSION}
ANDROID_SDK=${TOOLCHAIN}/android-sdk-linux
ANDROID_BUILD_TOOLS=27.0.3
ANDROID_LIB_PATH=${TOOLCHAIN}/standalone/${TRIPLE}/lib

export JAVA_SDK
export CC CXX LINK AR
export ANDROID_PLATFORM ANDROID_NDK ANDROID_NDK_PLATFORM_VERSION
export ANDROID_SDK ANDROID_BUILD_TOOLS
export ANDROID_LIB_PATH ANDROID_API_VERSION

Generating makefiles

The gyp-based build system generates a set of makefiles which are used to control the build process.

To generate makefiles in a build-android-armv6, simply run:

make config-android

To provide detailed configuration options, you can use the config.sh script. For more information, run:

./config.sh --help