Compile time Problem, When try to Set Android Runtime (ART) in Portable Mode for Lollipop.

[Rahul Talole]

Hi Everyone,

When I read aosp-5.1.0_r1 (Lollipop) source code, I find that the ART support three kinds of compiler backend: Quick, Optimizing and Portable, the default is Quick.
In order to learn more about ART, I want to  turn the Portable mode on. The following is what I do to turn on the Portable mode:

1) Modify the file art/build/Android.common_build.mk, change the value of ART_USE_PORTABLE_COMPILER to true;
2) Below that set WITH_ART_USE_PORTABLE_COMPILER to true;
3) And compile the Source code as usual.

but the compiler report some error, here is the screen-shot for it:

I tried to fix some errors by doing the required changes in the appropriate file in the source code, some errors are get removed but started coming new errors and the chain is still growing. Till now I don't know, whether I am going in right direction or not. Even I don't know the Portable mode of ART is working or not OR it need more setup to work other than those which I have done.

Please share the required information to change the ART to use from Quick-compiler to Portable-compiler, if any one has done the same previously.
 

[Paschalis Mpeis]

Unfortunately the portable backend was never in a working state in AOSP sources.

Last summer I have tried to patched it a bit here and there to make it work, and then I got bored and I gave up.

I didn't even know how much extra work it required just to make the compilation work.

(still it wouldn't mean that the produced binaries would be running okay!)

It was dropped from the sources more than a year ago because it was much slower than the other backends, and since then loooots of stuff have changed.

It would have been very useful for my research, and AFAIK there are also others interested!

And BTW, now that Android-N will perform some of the compilations at idle times the llvm's overhead wouldn't be much of a problem!