killer App for D? (was: State of D on iOS/Android)

[Johannes Pfau]

Am Thu, 2 Feb 2012 22:28:19 +0200
schrieb Manu <turkeyman at gmail.com>:

> On 2 February 2012 20:57, Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 2 February 2012 18:54, Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > > On 2 February 2012 18:10, Manu <turkeyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> On 2 February 2012 17:18, Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> On 2 February 2012 14:50, J Arrizza <cppgent0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>> >
> > >>> > So... Will D and Android GUI libraries be able to replace
> > >>> > Java in the next
> > >>> > two years? Is there a commitment or direction towards that
> > >>> > end?
> > >>> >
> > >>>
> > >>> Not replace, but it is my goal to certainly have it a viable
> > >>> alternative, just as you could alternatively use C/C++ on
> > >>> Android instead of Java.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Have you experimented with the android toolchain? Successfully
> > >> built a
> > GDC
> > >> for it?
> > >> I'm keen to get on with it the moment a working toolchain
> > >> appears, regardless if druntime/phobos builds/works.
> > >
> > > As soon as I've got some things off my plate with getting GDC out
> > > the door. I intend to get it going on my Android and my ARM7
> > > plug. :)
> > >
> >
> > To answer your question though, I have an old copy that worked on my
> > ARM plug device back a few months ago when I started
> > experimenting.  I intend to pick it back up soon though.
> 
> 
> Is the NDK's ARM7 toolchain modified in any way from stock GCC? why

Well, they have their own build systems/scripts (and those are not
that easy to understand and they're huge). Cross compilers are usually
built with such scripts (crosstool is a famous one, openembedded has
some stuff too) as building them manually can be a pita.
> do they provide their own toolchain? shouldn't they just build it
> from GCC main?
> 
I guess you mean why they use different sources? They add some patches
to GCC, but afaik they try to upstream most of those now.
See /android-ndk-r7/build/tools/toolchain-patches/gcc/

Regarding toolchain binaries, you'll need special compiler/optimization
flags depending on the processor you actually target. IIRC gcc also
needs information about the C library your targeting and some kernel
headers, so you'll need different binaries for different systems(eglibc
glibc uclibc bionic), abis (arm-eabi-gcc, gnueabi). Android uses
arm-eabi-gcc and their own bionic C library, while other linux based
ARM systems usually use glibc and gnueabi.

BTW: when googling for the android ndk i found this:
http://michael.f1337.us/2011/11/19/rebuilding-the-android-ndk-for-objective-c-support/
this could actually be useful when trying to add D
support to the ndk.