HelloWorld.apk built with Nim and no Android Studio ===================================================

To build the project, you will currently need the following prerequisites:

- Nim compiler - Go compiler (TODO: remove this dependency — at least provide prebuilt binaries of apksigner) - [Android NDK][ndk] (the elephant in the room...) - standalone toolchain — just [download][ndk] and unpack somewhere, no installation required afterwards (still, ~2.5GB unpacked) - ...and: NO Java, NO JRE, NO Android Studio, NO Android SDK! 🎉

[ndk]: https://developer.android.com/ndk/downloads

Build Steps

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• Compile the native JNI code, using Nim + Android NDK:

$ git clone https://github.com/akavel/hellomello # Edit nim.cfg: change --clang.path=... to a correct path to clang in your Android NDK directory. # Also: remove .cmd suffixes in nim.cfg if you are on Linux. $ cd hellomello $ nim c --app:lib --os:android --cpu=arm -d:noSignalHandler --hint[CC]:on hello.nim $ mkdir lib $ mkdir lib/armeabi-v7a $ mv libhello.so lib/armeabi-v7a/libhello-mello.so $ cd ..

• Assemble the Dalvik bytecode (required to wrap the JNI library), using dali:

$ git clone https://github.com/akavel/dali $ cd dali $ nim c jni_hello.nim $ ./jni_hello > ../hellomello/classes.dex $ cd ..

• Compile the manifest file to binary format, using marco:

$ git clone https://github.com/akavel/marco $ cd marco $ nimble build $ cd ../hellomello $ ../marco/marco < AndroidManifest0.xml > AndroidManifest.xml

• Build an unsigned .apk, using OS-provided zip archiver:

$ zip -r unsigned.apk classes.dex lib/ AndroidManifest.xml adding: classes.dex (172 bytes security) (deflated 44%) adding: lib/ (192 bytes security) (stored 0%) adding: lib/armeabi-v7a/ (192 bytes security) (stored 0%) adding: lib/armeabi-v7a/libhello-mello.so (172 bytes security) (deflated 60%) adding: AndroidManifest.xml (172 bytes security) (stored 0%) $ cd ..

• Sign the .apk, using apksigner tool written in Go:

$ git clone https://github.com/akavel/apksigner $ cd apksigner $ go build $ cd ../hellomello $ ../apksigner/apksigner -i unsigned.apk -o hello.apk -k key.pk8 -c key.x509.pem $ unzip -l hello.apk Archive: hello.apk Length Date Time Name -------- ---- ---- ---- 282 00-00-80 00:00 META-INF/MANIFEST.MF 335 00-00-80 00:00 META-INF/CERT.SF 436 00-00-80 00:00 META-INF/CERT.EC 14 06-05-19 22:30 AndroidManifest.xml 1060 06-05-19 22:29 classes.dex 149348 06-05-19 22:28 lib/armeabi-v7a/libhello-mello.so -------- ------- 151475 6 files

• ...aaand you should have a hello.apk file now, ready to be installed

on an ARM-based Android device. Worked For Me™... In case of problems installing or opening the apk on your device, try running adb logcat (yep, that requires Android Studio... or you could try python-adb). I suggest searching for "InstallInstall" and "InstallFail" messages, verifier/verification messages, and Java-like exception stack traces. You're welcome to post your problems as issues on this repository, but I can't promise I will be able to help you in any way. We can treat them as "observations" or "reports". Maybe someone else will come by and suggest some steps for future experimenters.

/Mateusz Czapliński. 2019-05-06