[Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Jon Harrop]

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What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written
in OCaml?

 

-- 

Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.

 <http://www.ffconsultancy.com/> http://www.ffconsultancy.com


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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

On 17 Sep 2013, at 21:37, "Jon Harrop" <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:

>  
> What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written in OCaml?

There's a GitHub OPAM repository here:
https://github.com/vouillon/opam-android-repository

and I've just ordered myself my first Android device, as Mirage has just been ported over to it a few days ago in UNIX mode:
https://lists.cam.ac.uk/pipermail/cl-mirage/2013-September/msg00062.html

I haven't tried it myself yet, but intend to once my physical device shows up.  Googling reveals a few applications built using it already, but I have no idea how substantial they are.

-anil

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Paolo Donadeo]

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The problem in this kind of porting is the huge work you need do to port
the SDK to access the device, the GUI widges, and so on.

In my dreams I write OCaml native applications for Android...


-- 
*Paolo*

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Thomas Sibut-Pinote]

Le 17/09/2013 22:37, Jon Harrop a écrit :
>  
>
> What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written
> in OCaml?
>
>  
>
I'm not sure if this anwers your question, but someone wrote an Ocaml 
toplevel for Android:
http://vernoux.fr/2011/11/11/ocaml-toplevel-for-android/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.vernoux.ocaml

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Kristopher Micinski]

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I have a large amount of Android experience.

The basic problem with running OCaml on Android is that pretty much
everything (minus a few system services / daemons, for example) runs inside
a Dalvik VM.  Everything that is a "real app" thus uses the facilities of
the SDK to interact with the underlying system.  (Various services such as
internet can be opened via a raw socket, and are protected via lower level
system modifications.)

So while it's possible to write pieces of apps in OCaml, I don't think
anyone's taken the time to generate wrappers around the Android SDK.  I was
very skeptical that this could be done efficiently since you'd be jumping
through JNI back and forth to bytecode / native code a lot, but I've talked
to someone on the Haskell-cafe mailing list (I'll try to dig up the email)
of someone who's said the penalty isn't as high as you'd think.

Kris



On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:

> ** **
>
> What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written
> in OCaml?****
>
> ** **
>
> -- ****
>
> Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.****
>
> http://www.ffconsultancy.com****
>

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Ivan Gotovchits]

Kristopher Micinski <krismicinski@gmail.com> writes:

> The basic problem with running OCaml on Android is that pretty much
> everything (minus a few system services / daemons, for example) runs
> inside a Dalvik VM.  Everything that is a "real app" thus uses the
> facilities of the SDK to interact with the underlying
> system.  (Various services such as internet can be opened via a raw
> socket, and are protected via lower level system modifications.)

And what about OCaml-Java [1]. Will it be possible to use it with
dalvik?

[1] http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/

-- 
         (__) 
         (oo) 
   /------\/ 
  / |    ||   
 *  /\---/\ 
    ~~   ~~   
...."Have you mooed today?"...

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Kristopher Micinski]

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With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of the
status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation details.
 Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort of hack
the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard part:
all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is very
Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even if
you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.

Kris



On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 11:35 PM, Ivan Gotovchits <ivg@ieee.org> wrote:

> Kristopher Micinski <krismicinski@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > The basic problem with running OCaml on Android is that pretty much
> > everything (minus a few system services / daemons, for example) runs
> > inside a Dalvik VM.  Everything that is a "real app" thus uses the
> > facilities of the SDK to interact with the underlying
> > system.  (Various services such as internet can be opened via a raw
> > socket, and are protected via lower level system modifications.)
>
> And what about OCaml-Java [1]. Will it be possible to use it with
> dalvik?
>
> [1] http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/
>
> --
>          (__)
>          (oo)
>    /------\/
>   / |    ||
>  *  /\---/\
>     ~~   ~~
> ...."Have you mooed today?"...
>

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[forum]

Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :

> With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of the status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation details.  Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort of hack the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard part: all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is very Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even if you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.

In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
other pending problem.

From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...

Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
    http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
The main potential problem with this approach is that the
extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?


Hope this helps,

Xavier Clerc

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Kristopher Micinski]

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On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:19 AM, forum@x9c.fr <forum@x9c.fr> wrote:

>
> Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :
>
> > With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of the
> status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation details.
>  Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort of hack
> the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard part:
> all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is very
> Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even if
> you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.
>
> In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
> In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
> for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
> only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
> other pending problem.
>
> From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
> for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
> modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
> of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...
>
>
Yes, that would be a deal breaker.  That fell under the technical points of
ocaml-java with which I wasn't familiar.

Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
> one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
> manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
>     http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
> The main potential problem with this approach is that the
> extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
> not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
> event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
> Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
> expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
> or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?
>

Yes, it does rely on extending an abstract class.  This does, in fact,
permeate the framework.

kris

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Alexandre Pilkiewicz]

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http://gallium.inria.fr/blog/ocaml-on-a-nexus-7/


On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Kristopher Micinski <
krismicinski@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:19 AM, forum@x9c.fr <forum@x9c.fr> wrote:
>
>>
>> Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :
>>
>> > With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of
>> the status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation
>> details.  Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort
>> of hack the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard
>> part: all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is
>> very Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even
>> if you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.
>>
>> In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
>> In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
>> for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
>> only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
>> other pending problem.
>>
>> From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
>> for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
>> modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
>> of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...
>>
>>
> Yes, that would be a deal breaker.  That fell under the technical points
> of ocaml-java with which I wasn't familiar.
>
> Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
>> one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
>> manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
>>     http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
>> The main potential problem with this approach is that the
>> extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
>> not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
>> event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
>> Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
>> expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
>> or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?
>>
>
> Yes, it does rely on extending an abstract class.  This does, in fact,
> permeate the framework.
>
>  kris
>
>

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Kristopher Micinski]

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Yes, so this is what happens if you want to just run an ocaml binary on
your Android device.  If you actually want to do anything android related
at all (other than running a binary in the shell, treating your device like
it's a linux computer) then you have to run inside a VM, so you can
actually talk to the GUI, SDK, etc...

Kris



On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Alexandre Pilkiewicz <
alexandre.pilkiewicz@polytechnique.org> wrote:

> http://gallium.inria.fr/blog/ocaml-on-a-nexus-7/
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Kristopher Micinski <
> krismicinski@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:19 AM, forum@x9c.fr <forum@x9c.fr> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :
>>>
>>> > With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of
>>> the status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation
>>> details.  Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort
>>> of hack the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard
>>> part: all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is
>>> very Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even
>>> if you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.
>>>
>>> In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
>>> In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
>>> for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
>>> only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
>>> other pending problem.
>>>
>>> From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
>>> for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
>>> modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
>>> of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...
>>>
>>>
>> Yes, that would be a deal breaker.  That fell under the technical points
>> of ocaml-java with which I wasn't familiar.
>>
>> Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
>>> one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
>>> manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
>>>     http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
>>> The main potential problem with this approach is that the
>>> extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
>>> not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
>>> event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
>>> Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
>>> expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
>>> or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, it does rely on extending an abstract class.  This does, in fact,
>> permeate the framework.
>>
>>  kris
>>
>>
>
>

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RE: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Jon Harrop]

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You cannot even call OpenGL ES directly?

 

That would explain some weirdness in the Xamarin libs…

 

Cheers,

Jon.

 

From: Kristopher Micinski [mailto:krismicinski@gmail.com] 
Sent: 19 September 2013 21:58
To: Alexandre Pilkiewicz
Cc: forum@x9c.fr; Ivan Gotovchits; Jon Harrop; Caml List
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

 

Yes, so this is what happens if you want to just run an ocaml binary on your
Android device.  If you actually want to do anything android related at all
(other than running a binary in the shell, treating your device like it's a
linux computer) then you have to run inside a VM, so you can actually talk
to the GUI, SDK, etc...

 

Kris

 

 

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Alexandre Pilkiewicz
<alexandre.pilkiewicz@polytechnique.org> wrote:

http://gallium.inria.fr/blog/ocaml-on-a-nexus-7/

 

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Kristopher Micinski
<krismicinski@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:19 AM, forum@x9c.fr <forum@x9c.fr> wrote:


Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :


> With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of the
status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation details.
Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort of hack the
android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard part: all the
tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is very Java
oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even if you were
to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.

In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
other pending problem.

From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...

 

Yes, that would be a deal breaker.  That fell under the technical points of
ocaml-java with which I wasn't familiar.

 

Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
    http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
The main potential problem with this approach is that the
extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?

 

Yes, it does rely on extending an abstract class.  This does, in fact,
permeate the framework.

 

kris

 

 

 


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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[forum]

Le 19 sept. 2013 à 17:18, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :

> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:19 AM, forum@x9c.fr <forum@x9c.fr> wrote:
> 
> Le 19 sept. 2013 à 06:35, Kristopher Micinski a écrit :
> 
> > With a little bit of hacking it'd probably work, but I'm not sure of the status of ocaml-java and haven't looked into the implementation details.  Since ocaml-java outputs class files (afaik) you'd have to sort of hack the android build pipeline yourself, but that wouldn't be the hard part: all the tools are there.  The harder part is that the Android SDK is very Java oriented, and it just feels awkward as hell to use in OCaml even if you were to write a thin wrapper around the SDK.
> 
> In theory, you are right that it wouldn't be hard.
> In practice, the problem is that OCaml-Java emits classes
> for Java 1.7 while (to the best of my knowledge) Android
> only accepts Java 1.6 classes. As far as I know, there is no
> other pending problem.
> 
> From this point, the question would be: is it better to wait
> for Android to update to Java 1.7 (or even 1.8...), or to
> modify OCaml-Java? Honestly, I would need quite a bit
> of encouragement to modify OCaml-Java in this direction...
> 
> 
> Yes, that would be a deal breaker.  That fell under the technical points of ocaml-java with which I wasn't familiar.
> 
> Regarding interaction with the classes of the Android SDK,
> one may be interested in the typer extension allowing to
> manipulate Java instances from pure OCaml code:
>     http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/preview/javaext.html
> The main potential problem with this approach is that the
> extension currently allows only to implement interfaces, but
> not to extend classes. It may be a problem if for example the
> event system of Android is based on abstract classes.
> Another problem may be the "linking", i. e. the way Android
> expects to execute an application: is it a bare main method,
> or is there a need to implement/extend a given interface/class?
> 
> Yes, it does rely on extending an abstract class.  This does, in fact, permeate the framework.

This problem is indeed to be fixed in a future version of OCaml-Java.
Currently, you can extend an abstract class only in well delimited
circumstances, for example to build an applet.


Xavier Clerc

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Richard Mortier]

On 17 September 2013 21:37, Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
>
>
> What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written
> in OCaml?

a colleague here ported cadmium to android a while back. don't know
how relevant/working it still is though.

https://github.com/dominicjprice/joecaml

-- 
Richard Mortier
mort@cantab.net

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[forum]

Le 19 sept. 2013 à 14:46, Richard Mortier a écrit :

> On 17 September 2013 21:37, Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> What is the status of OCaml on Android? Have any Android apps been written
>> in OCaml?
> 
> a colleague here ported cadmium to android a while back. don't know
> how relevant/working it still is though.

Beware, Cadmium is only providing an OCaml bytecode interpreter
written in Java. You hence only get a Java equivalent of the "ocamlrun"
program.


Xavier Clerc

[Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Mihamina Rakotomandimby]

Hi all,

I am really happy to see the existence of http://goo.gl/Pwppq
I firstly installed the original (http://goo.gl/dX0QK) but the fork is 
really a big improvement.

Looked for a PHP, Python,... interpreter and did not find easily.
Looked for OCaml: those ones!

Thank you! :-)

-- 
RMA.

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Andrej Bauer]

Could you please _not_ use the URL shorteners, for archiving purposes? Thanks.

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 7:05 AM, Mihamina Rakotomandimby
<mihamina@rktmb.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am really happy to see the existence of http://goo.gl/Pwppq
> I firstly installed the original (http://goo.gl/dX0QK) but the fork is
> really a big improvement.
>
> Looked for a PHP, Python,... interpreter and did not find easily.
> Looked for OCaml: those ones!
>
> Thank you! :-)
>
> --
> RMA.
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Android

[Kakadu]

Btw,
Does anybody has experience of developing applications for Android?

ocamljava or ocaml+necessitas ?

Best wishes,
Kakadu!

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Mihamina Rakotomandimby
<mihamina@rktmb.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am really happy to see the existence of http://goo.gl/Pwppq
> I firstly installed the original (http://goo.gl/dX0QK) but the fork is
> really a big improvement.
>
> Looked for a PHP, Python,... interpreter and did not find easily.
> Looked for OCaml: those ones!
>
> Thank you! :-)
>
> --
> RMA.
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>