how to compile for Android

[PK]

Hi,

What should I do to compile Rodent (or any other console application chess program) for Android?

I am using Windows and Visual Studio 2017 community edition. Theoretically it should compile C++ code for ARM, but in practice I get a warning that I cannot compile a classic application for platform {0}

Any hints?

[Sesse]

As far as I know, you cannot use Visual Studio for this. Android runs Linux; Visual Studio is Windows-only. You want the Android Native Development kit (and ideally a Linux machine—although the NDK can cross-compile, it's unlikely that the build system for any given engine will support that).

No matter what, be prepared to do a some porting work.

[PK]

Theoretically, compiling under Windows for Android should be possible. The warning I mentioned can be solved by changing vcproject file (see https://pete.akeo.ie/2017/05/compiling- ... -with.html caveat #2), now I get a linker error about the wrong machine (LNK 1112).

[syzygy]

Theoretically, compiling under Windows for Android should be possible. The warning I mentioned can be solved by changing vcproject file (see https://pete.akeo.ie/2017/05/compiling- ... -with.html caveat #2), now I get a linker error about the wrong machine (LNK 1112).

Compiling for ARM (= a processor architecture) is not the same as compiling for Android (= a version of Linux that runs on ARM).

In particular, I'm quite sure that Windows RT binaries and Windows 10 on ARM binaries won't run on Android.

[Ras]

You can cross-compile under Windows using the NDK: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guide ... _toolchain

However, there are additional issues with C++ where you have a lot of STLs to choose from (I would expect most of the options not to work). On top of that, it looks like Rodent is using CPU dependent code with SSE3, which will probably give another rounds of headache. And stuff like wordexp.h which NDK doesn't find, or at least my installation fails to do so.

[syzygy]

Apparently Wine includes some support for ARM:
https://wiki.winehq.org/ARM

But I have little doubt that trying to get an ARM Windows binary to work on Android using Wine is a much greater headache than rewriting the engine to be portable.

[Ras]

rewriting the engine to be portable.

Especially since that seems already to be the case with Rodent where the website says (under downloads) "source code ready to be compiled under Linux".

[Sesse]

Presumably that's Linux/glibc, not Linux/Bionic, but yes, trying to make a Windows ARM binary and getting it to run on Android is a losing game here.