Python for Android

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.

• Website: http://python-for-android.rtfd.org/
• Forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=fr#!forum/python-android
• Mailing list: python-android@googlegroups.com

Global overview

1. Download Android NDK, SDK

• NDK: http://dl.google.com/android/ndk/android-ndk-r8c-linux-x86.tar.bz2
• More details at: http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html
• SDK: http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r21.0.1-linux.tgz
• More details at:http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

1. Launch "android", and download latest Android platform, here API 14, which would be Android 4.0

2. Export some environment variables:

   export ANDROIDSDK="/path/to/android/android-sdk-linux_86"
   export ANDROIDNDK="/path/to/android/android-ndk-r8c"
   export ANDROIDNDKVER=r8c
   export ANDROIDAPI=14
   

(Of course correct the paths mentioned in ANDROIDSDK and ANDROIDNDK)

1. Clone python-for-android:

   git clone git://github.com/kivy/python-for-android
   

2. Build a distribution with OpenSSL module, PIL and Kivy:

   cd python-for-android
   ./distribute.sh -m "openssl pil kivy"
   

3. Go to your fresh distribution, build the APK of your application:

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

4. Install the debug apk to your device:

   adb install bin/touchtracer-1.0-debug.apk
   

5. Enjoy.

Bootstraps

We call bootstraps the part of the toolchain/code that will start your Python code. For example, Kivy currently require lot of code to start the Activity, setup the OpenGL ES 2 context, initialize the native environment, extract your application code, and boot on it. This bootstrap is called "legacy".

Another bootstrap currently in experimentation is "minimal". It use a Native activity, extract only one file and boot on it, and will start your main.py directly from the APK. This can be a place to others experimentation such as pure-python / android applications.

You can select a bootstrap with:

./distribute -b "minimal" -m "python"

The minimal bootstrap can be used with:

./build.py --package org.test.minimal --name __minimal --version 1 \
           --private ~/code/testmininal/ --minsdk 9 --sdk 14 \
           --asset \
           debug

Here is a minimal example of main.py for the minimal bootstrap:

import androidembed
print "Hello world, we are entering in a loop!"
while androidembed.poll(1000):
    print "Plop"
print "We leaved our hello world!"

Each bootstrap have recommendations and limitations. More informations can be found at each bootstrap/NAME/README.

Troubleshooting

if you get the following message:

Android NDK: Host 'awk' tool is outdated. Please define HOST_AWK to point to Gawk or Nawk !

a solution is to remove the "awk" binary in the android ndk distribution

rm $ANDROIDNDK/prebuilt/linux-x86/bin/awk