User:Blassey/Notes/Android

Build Env

After normal linux build pre-reqs:

 wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/source/android-ndk-r4c-0moz3.tar.bz2
 wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r06-linux_86.tgz
 tar -xf android-sdk_r06-linux_86.tgz
 tar -xjf android-ndk-r4c-0moz3.tar.bz2
 ./android-sdk-linux_86/tools/android update sdk

And already set up VM can be found here: http://lassey.us/droid-vm.7z

Debugging

Nvidia's gdb is better: http://developer.download.nvidia.com/tegra/files/tegra-gdb-20100902.zip

In order to attach before things get running, launch with:

  adb shell am start -a org.mozilla.gecko.DEBUG -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App

and just click launch once gdb is attached. If you need to debug a crash that happens before XRE_Main is called, the patch on bug 572247 may be useful.

Env Vars

If you need to set and env var at run time, use append --es env# VAR=VAL to your activity manager command where # is the ordered number of variables for example:

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App --es env0 VAR=val --es env1 FOO=bar

You may need bug 578493 if the env var you're using is tested before XRE_Main is called

PR Logging

You can use the env vars as described above to make logging work (along with bug 578493). With just that you can log to a file

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App --es env0 NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5 --es env1 NSPR_LOG_FILE=/mnt/sdcard/log.txt

With the patch on bug 578496 you can have the logging directed to the android logs and as such only need:

 adb shell am start -a android.activity.MAIN -n org.mozilla.fennec/org.mozilla.fennec.App --es env0 NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5

debugging without rooting

with Froyo you can debug without rooting your phone. However to make this work with the nvidia gdb (which I found more reliable than the android r3 gdb) you need to modify install.sh and debug.sh.

first, change the location where install.sh copies gdbserver to somewhere writable by a non-root process. I used /data/local. Be sure to update that both in the push command and the chmod command.

second, update debug.sh with the new location of gdbserver.

finally, you'll need to add run-as $2 to the adb shell command that launches gdbserver. In the end you should have: install.sh:

 #!/bin/sh
 mkdir lib
 adb push prebuilt/gdbserver /data/local
 adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/gdbserver
 for file in $(adb shell ls /system/lib | tr "\n" " " | tr "\r" " "); do
     adb pull /system/lib/$file lib
 done
 adb pull /system/bin/app_process lib 

debug.sh:

 !/bin/sh
 if [ $# -ne 2 ]
 then
     echo "usage: $0 /path/to/your/library.so packagename.of.your.activity"
     echo "for example:"
     echo "  $0 /code/mydemo/libs/armeabi/libmydemo.so com.nvidia.devtech.mydemo"
     exit
 fi
 
 if [ ! -f $1 ]
 then
     echo "ERROR: That library file doesn't exist"
     exit
 fi
 
 cp $1 lib
 
 p=`adb shell ps | grep $2 | awk '{print $2}'`
 if [ "$p" = "" ];
 then
     echo "ERROR: That doesn't seem to be a running process. Please make sure your"
     echo "application has been started and that you are using the correct"
     echo "namespace argument."
     exit
 fi
 
 adb forward tcp:12345 tcp:12345
 adb shell run-as $2 /data/local/gdbserver --attach :12345 $p

killer script

 #!/bin/sh
 if [ $# -ne 1 ]
 then
     echo "usage: $0  packagename.of.your.activity"
     echo "for example:"
     echo "  $0 org.mozilla.fennec"
     exit
 fi
 
 p=`adb shell ps | grep $1 | awk '{print $2}'`
 if [ "$p" = "" ];
 then
     echo "ERROR: That doesn't seem to be a running process. Please make sure your"
     echo "application has been started and that you are using the correct"
     echo "namespace argument."
     exit
 fi
 
 adb shell run-as $1 kill $p