Introduction

A guide on how to build Python Modules. Note: For 2.6.2 Python. 3.2.2 is still in development

Setup

Download the latest python-lib from our Downloads section, At time of writing, this is:

python-lib_r14.zip

Unzip this into python-modules/python-lib

Using setuptools - Creating Egg

NDK setup

In order to build binary modules you need to have Android NDK installed and correctly setup. Download the latest NDK, drop it somewhere, do a toolchain installation, and then export the next variables:

export ANDROID_NDK_TOOLCHAIN_ROOT=<path to installed toolchain>

Setup setup.py

In order to use setuptools with Android a few changes need to be done into your setup.py script. First you need to monkey patch setuptools, we provide with a helper script for this, edit your setup.py and add this lines before calling setup

from py4a import patch_distutils
patch_distutils()

You also need to either pass -p linux-armv or create a file setup.cfg inside the same folder than setup.py with this content

[bdist_egg]
plat-name=linux-armv

Setup environment

If your project uses binary modules, the build process is a bit rougher, but still a lot of fun. Before calling build you need to import a shell script that will setup your environment to work, this script is called setup.sh and is part of the python-lib package.

So supposing we're working on projectX, and our folder structure is this:

python-lib
..........setup.sh
projectX
..........setup.py
..........setup.cfg

Then you would do from projectX.

source ../python-lib/setup.sh

Cooking your eggs

Ok so it's time to cook an egg. Once we have all the setup done it's time to boil the water and cook an egg.

If everything is fine the process is simple just do the regular python setup.py bdist_egg . If it doesn't work for you, then start looking at our other modules, and start asking questions in our mailing list, we don't bite.

Stuff below this line is more or less obsolete

But may still be useful...

Non egg projects

cd to the folder containing your module, and run:

bash build.sh

There are now several modules built and supported by !Py4a. See Modules.

How to Build your Own Modules

Currently, the best advice is to look at how pybluez was built, in python-modules/pybluez.

At this time, we are working on a more comprehensive guide.

Rough Guide

If your module is pure python, then using it is as simple as copying the module into your phone. The best path for this is: /sdcard/com.googlecode.pythonforandroid/extras/python

If it contains C or C++ source code, it gets more complex. Currently we are using the Android NDK to manage module builds. This is easy to install, but requires a little setup to make it compile the needed .so files.

In general, you need to:

• Copy the .c and .h files into a jni folder.
• Set up an android.mk to tell ndk-build what to do.
• set up a script to run ndk-build and then copy the needed python and .so files into a zip.

See the source for pybluez for a simple example, and for twisted for something more complex.

Documentation on the Android.mk can be found in the android-ndk docs folder.