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digitalmars.D.ldc - Status of iOS and Android support?

reply Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:
Hey all,

I was just curious if there had been any news for iOS and Android 
support in LDC. I'm currently working on a first draft for a GSoC 
proposal and parts of it have to do with Android, iOS, and LDC.

Are they more or less working? Can anyone point me to where I 
should get started if I want to use those features? If memory 
serves, there was separate branches for iOS and Android 
respectively.

And of course, thanks to the awesome LDC team and contributors.
Mar 04 2016
next sibling parent Kai Nacke <kai redstar.de> writes:
On Friday, 4 March 2016 at 17:01:11 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:

 Hey all,

 I was just curious if there had been any news for iOS and 
 Android support in LDC. I'm currently working on a first draft 
 for a GSoC proposal and parts of it have to do with Android, 
 iOS, and LDC.

 Are they more or less working? Can anyone point me to where I 
 should get started if I want to use those features? If memory 
 serves, there was separate branches for iOS and Android 
 respectively.

 And of course, thanks to the awesome LDC team and contributors.


Hi Jeremy!

The best persons to answer your question are Dan and Joakim. My 
high-level view is:

- ARM support is now mature
- Android changes from upstream have been merged
- iOS is still being discussed and not yet merged
- Dan is working on ObjC support

Most development work was done on ltsmaster branch and is not yet 
fully merged into master (which happens hopefully soon).

Regards,
Kai
Mar 04 2016
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Friday, 4 March 2016 at 17:01:11 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:

 Hey all,

 I was just curious if there had been any news for iOS and 
 Android support in LDC. I'm currently working on a first draft 
 for a GSoC proposal and parts of it have to do with Android, 
 iOS, and LDC.


Mind sharing what you want to do with mobile?


 Are they more or less working? Can anyone point me to where I 
 should get started if I want to use those features? If memory 
 serves, there was separate branches for iOS and Android 
 respectively.


For a purely native app, Android should work fine as almost all 
tests pass with all optimizations: only two unit test blocks 
assert across two modules, core.thread and std.math.  I'm 
currently trying out JNI, for when you need to call Java-only 
APIs that Android doesn't make available directly through C, 
should have something to say about that this weekend.

You should take a look at the wiki to get started with Android:

http://wiki.dlang.org/Build_LDC_for_Android

Even if you don't want to build from source, you can use the 
instructions on building sample apps there along with the 
pre-packaged alpha compilers for Android:

https://github.com/joakim-noah/android/releases

Unfortunately, you cannot just use the official ldc release, as 
there are still modifications to llvm and ldc that have not been 
merged upstream, while almost all tweaks to druntime and phobos 
have been merged.  I'll try to get those remaining changes in 
soon.
Mar 04 2016
parent reply Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:
Thanks to both of you. As long as they're more or less working, 
it should be enough for what I want to do.

I maintain DSFML, a binding to SFML which is a multimedia library 
aimed at video games. Currently, SFML is able to target iOS and 
Android. One of the items in my proposal is to upgrade parts of 
the binding and together with LDC this should allow people to 
easily write games and other multimedia applications for mobile 
using D.
Mar 04 2016
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Friday, 4 March 2016 at 20:03:43 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:

 Thanks to both of you. As long as they're more or less working, 
 it should be enough for what I want to do.

 I maintain DSFML, a binding to SFML which is a multimedia 
 library aimed at video games. Currently, SFML is able to target 
 iOS and Android. One of the items in my proposal is to upgrade 
 parts of the binding and together with LDC this should allow 
 people to easily write games and other multimedia applications 
 for mobile using D.


Oh nice, hope that works out.
Mar 04 2016
prev sibling parent reply Dan Olson <gorox comcast.net> writes:
Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:


 Hey all,

 I was just curious if there had been any news for iOS and Android
 support in LDC. I'm currently working on a first draft for a GSoC
 proposal and parts of it have to do with Android, iOS, and LDC.

 Are they more or less working? Can anyone point me to where I should
 get started if I want to use those features? If memory serves, there
 was separate branches for iOS and Android respectively.

 And of course, thanks to the awesome LDC team and contributors.


Hi back,

Yes, iOS support is being maintained in an LDC fork right now.  As far
as I can it tell, it more or less works.  It would be cool if you can
use with it and Joakim's Android version too.

Easiest way to get started is to use the pre-built compiler chain from
here:

  https://github.com/smolt/ldc-iphone-dev/releases

Or follow the instructions to build the compiler chain yourself:

  https://github.com/smolt/ldc-iphone-dev/blob/master/README.md

You get a 2.068 based compiler along with phobos.  Once LDC 1.0.0 is
released with 2.069 front end, I'll update the iOS fork.

Take a look at the README.md and if you have questions just ask.  I'd
very much like to help make your project a success.
-- 
Dan
Mar 04 2016
parent reply Jason Yegge <Lansatac+dforum gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 5 March 2016 at 05:56:37 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:

 Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:



 Take a look at the README.md and if you have questions just 
 ask.  I'd very much like to help make your project a success.


I'd love to write some mobile-compatible libraries., and this 
looks great, but a little out of date now. Did this ever get 
merged back to LDC? Is that possible? Is there anything I can I 
do to help get this moving again?
Aug 17 2017
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 17 August 2017 at 18:51:55 UTC, Jason Yegge wrote:

 On Saturday, 5 March 2016 at 05:56:37 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:

 Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:



 Take a look at the README.md and if you have questions just 
 ask.  I'd very much like to help make your project a success.


 I'd love to write some mobile-compatible libraries., and this 
 looks great, but a little out of date now. Did this ever get 
 merged back to LDC? Is that possible? Is there anything I can I 
 do to help get this moving again?


No, Dan hasn't had time for it for the last year or so.  He's 
looking for someone to take over: take a look at his patches if 
you're interested.

As for Android, it's all merged, the upcoming ldc 1.4 beta will 
be the first official release to support Android.
Aug 17 2017