I don't know how to do much of anything on Android, but if you can post a small Java code example, I can suggest how to use it from D. You can bind many classes through the jni.

The biggest limitation is you can't do callbacks or subclasses through android jni, so it is kinda limited for interactive components.

On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 14:24:18 UTC, Adam D Ruppe wrote:
> I don't know how to do much of anything on Android, but if you can post a small Java code example, I can suggest how to use it from D. You can bind many classes through the jni.
>
> The biggest limitation is you can't do callbacks or subclasses through android jni, so it is kinda limited for interactive components.



> Always prefer to use Java code instead of NDK library code.
> I'm not saying to not use D, I'm saying that using NDK libraries
> such opensl es asset manager other ones are really trickier to use.
> If you're just starting to code for android ndk
> prefer doing the work inside java and using D to call
> the java method that you need. This is the main advice
> I can give you. And never use native activity.
> Too much work for nothing.



    Just as I thought. I had too much of Java years ago and I am not going through that again and will have to use the documentation! I would rather use Javascript! I kid. I know the hate. I understand, but it's not so bad I think. I make apps in Javascript easily. No problem at all. This occasion? It is not possible.
    On the android forums they suggested I use a generator on the files I need from the NDK, but I will not do that and I will do the classes one by one by hand as I use them. I can't use Java. Like an old girlfriend once I say enough is enough I will go and I don't look back. I do like it better than Kotlin from what I have seen, so that is why I choose to do it all in D.
    I will look through the NDK for the classes I need then. The two things that were most important for a reply from you lot are exactly on using these header files of inside the NDK? of which I only have used extern(C) on the moments after learning the D language. Too many years ago. That and I don't mind writing the boilerplate code as you say maybe I could try binding some if I can figure out how without writting any Java. That is why I was trying to avoid to use the jni. I mostly worry about keeping things maintainable for when I decide to use the module again for some other android project that I can not do with Javascript.
    The boilerplate is easy but Then the other part is a problem for me is the necessary other Java classes. They are not part of the NDK so the only way to load the jar is to use jni? Is that correct? I saw a jartoD function in arsd.jni but I wasn't sure how it fit into the lib or what it was used for "translator"? I wasn't sure. For the Apache client library and the other 2 jar classes I will use with it then writting all the Java binding seems inevitable. This makes me want to use D more and more. A much better language in my opinion. If I ever decide that I should to use a C library as a replacement for the D curl library then that will be additional work. I was wanting to ask the experts to see the best way to do these but I guess there is no easy way. On github there was what I saw a partial NDK headers for D project but the classes I need were not there. I prefer NDK livrary code because it is more acceptable for me to read and understand the functional programming of C. All the classes of the framework API in the SDK give me a headache! The NDK is much nicer to menin that way.
    What I want to do is fetch a file from the internet! That's it! How did I get in this mess?

On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 01:19:23 UTC, jni wrote:
>     The boilerplate is easy but Then the other part is a problem for me is the necessary other Java classes. They are not part of the NDK so the only way to load the jar is to use jni? Is that correct?

I haven't updated this for a while,but I translated the whole api back in 2020 for my d_android package

https://code.dlang.org/packages/d_android

see for example:
https://github.com/adamdruppe/d_android/blob/master/java_bindings/android/java/android/net/ConnectivityManager_d_interface.d


(but be warned if you import these it can be very slow to compile, so just bringing only the classes you need can be much faster)

I also translated the ndk headers to D back then:

https://github.com/adamdruppe/d_android/tree/master/translated_headers/android/ndk


But I never used android beyond hello world so i just don't know THAT much about it.

On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 01:28:42 UTC, Adam D Ruppe wrote:
> On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 01:19:23 UTC, jni wrote:
>>     The boilerplate is easy but Then the other part is a problem for me is the necessary other Java classes. They are not part of the NDK so the only way to load the jar is to use jni? Is that correct?
>
> I haven't updated this for a while,but I translated the whole api back in 2020 for my d_android package
>
> https://code.dlang.org/packages/d_android
>
> see for example:
> https://github.com/adamdruppe/d_android/blob/master/java_bindings/android/java/android/net/ConnectivityManager_d_interface.d
>
>
> (but be warned if you import these it can be very slow to compile, so just bringing only the classes you need can be much faster)
>
> I also translated the ndk headers to D back then:
>
> https://github.com/adamdruppe/d_android/tree/master/translated_headers/android/ndk
>
>
> But I never used android beyond hello world so i just don't know THAT much about it.


    Nice. Some of those names do look different but I will give it a try. Your arsd.jni library can be used to translate the headers then that is helping the cause already. I am not sure if the names are different because of seperate APIs having different naming for classes? It's good. But you did the java bindings by hand or is there a generator in arsd.jni for that too? I am interested in using your library anyways if I decide to do some of it by hand, if only to verify that what I did was there correctly written. This is good but if it can be used on any jar then it is even better. Java interfaces are easy and the naming scheme for jni is not so bad but I was trying to write as much in D as possible forward looking in a situation where I can use it again. I haven't taken a look at the client code but I already know that it will be substantial so I hope it works and I am liking Java more already after this. The d_android Java bindings are written in D as I was aiming to do from what I can see it is basicly what I planned to do so it is perfect for me.

Thank you for your time.

On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 11:17:47 UTC, jni wrote:
> It's good. But you did the java bindings by hand or is there a generator in arsd.jni for that too?

It does it automatically. You compile jni.d with `-version=WithClassLoadSupport` and then write a main function that calls `jarToD("path/to/file.jar", "whatever.d.name", "output_directory", JavaTranslatorConfig(true, true, true));`

Or something like that. It has been 3 years lol. But I put some docs in there too

http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.jarToD.html

http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.JavaTranslationConfig.html


For the C .h files, I used the `dstep` program
https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dstep/

with a bit of hand edits after.

On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 15:03:13 UTC, Adam D Ruppe wrote:
> On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 11:17:47 UTC, jni wrote:
>> It's good. But you did the java bindings by hand or is there a generator in arsd.jni for that too?
>
> It does it automatically. You compile jni.d with `-version=WithClassLoadSupport` and then write a main function that calls `jarToD("path/to/file.jar", "whatever.d.name", "output_directory", JavaTranslatorConfig(true, true, true));`
>
> Or something like that. It has been 3 years lol. But I put some docs in there too
>
> http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.jarToD.html
>
> http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.JavaTranslationConfig.html
>
>
> For the C .h files, I used the `dstep` program
> https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dstep/
>
> with a bit of hand edits after.


    I had jni.d already, not so sure if it was from an earlier module that I have worked on but I am pretty sure that file was already it was there. I don't know what I could've used it for. With Dstep I heard of it before maybe 6 years ago and all this years I thought it was for Objective C, that is why I had to do those myself using extern, but it was only a few functions. But this java translator it interests me greatly how with such a small library it can do that. Does it import a VM that is different from the JVM for the translation or did you sit down and write the Java implementation for it yourself? Because it seemed like a small library when I last took a look. Very nice. Android is the only phone besides buying a $1,000 iphone and for me it doesn't really make much sense. Android is much more better for programming and I myself don't mind its quirks. It's not a perfect phone but the Kotlin and Java options are just not what I need in my line of work. Probably some day I will have no choice but to learn Java again! That is what I expect will happen in the future and it is laughable, but for now it is a much better thing to have the D language available to me for writing this simple scripts that I have to do on occasion. If I write something worthwhile I will be sure to put it on code.dlang.org and name it Triple-D.

On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 15:03:13 UTC, Adam D Ruppe wrote:
> On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 11:17:47 UTC, jni wrote:
>> It's good. But you did the java bindings by hand or is there a generator in arsd.jni for that too?
>
> It does it automatically. You compile jni.d with `-version=WithClassLoadSupport` and then write a main function that calls `jarToD("path/to/file.jar", "whatever.d.name", "output_directory", JavaTranslatorConfig(true, true, true));`
>
> Or something like that. It has been 3 years lol. But I put some docs in there too
>
> http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.jarToD.html
>
> http://arsd-official.dpldocs.info/arsd.jni.JavaTranslationConfig.html
>
>
> For the C .h files, I used the `dstep` program
> https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dstep/
>
> with a bit of hand edits after.



    Hello, friends. I am ready to make my engineering decisions. I have been up and down the d-android repos and I have a firmer grasp as to what the jni actually is, and I presume that it is used in the Android NDK. In the months ago that I opened the NDK I noticed the C files but I did not go in for closer inspection. I have only one more question for you so that I can get to a better engineering decision for the app I will build. Are the differences negligible between using the jni and writing the app in C?
    Does the NDK provide both the jni and  C libraries then you Adam chose to use jni instead of the C or are they together binded in the NDK? eg. The C library uses jni? I know the Android OS uses jni, but I thought the native APIs were native to the OS, not written ontop with the jni.