research different approaches to get python running on android
I've tried kivy and sl4a/py4a and py4a/sl4a with CLE
Another approach that is still untested is using Cython to compile python code to c binary code (native libraries) and loading the native libraries in java as usual.
PROs Kivy
actively developed project
CONs
kivy is a good framework if you want to port a whole python application to android. there is no simple way to integrate the kivi generated project into an existing Android project. Kivi builds it's own apk, we don't want that, as we want to integrate the python libraries into our own project. Kivy needs quite long to load the python libraries (~ 5 sec.) which is quite awful regarding the usability.
Pros sl4a/py4a
- nice examples how to use an RPC approach
- easy to integrate python libraries to the Android project
Cons
-
at the moment still a lot of overhead to get the things running:
- you've got to install sl4a, which installs py4a afterwards
- for testing purposes, using the python shell, you need to import the cross compiled python eggs manually
-
it uses python 2.6.2, but there's a forked project that made python 2.7 running
py4a/sl4a with CLE
Pros
- Common language extension is a middleware that makes it easy to call python code from java and vice versa
Cons
- ??
(from redmine: created on 2014-02-06, closed on 2014-03-01)