Running Erlang on Android via NDK

[Vivek Ayer]

Hey guys,

Couchbase put up instructions on github oh how to build Erlang for Android using NDK. However, the instructions are not really clear and I'm not really sure they work.

I can write a NDK app that includes a basic C library, so I'm guessing the Erlang VM needs somehow be compiled down to a C library as well? I envision writing erlang code that gets compiled to beams which are then packaged in an apk to be run by the VM. Is this possible?

Thanks,

Vivek

[Vivek Ayer]

I guess the better question is: can you have a apk that contains:

- Java-specific part

- Erlang VM compiled for ARM (basically erts)

- Your erlang app-specific BEAMs (already compiled for ARM elsewhere)

- Some NDK/JNI call to the erts to start the app-specific BEAMs

such that, I wouldn't need to root my phone to start erlang?

Vivek

[Dongsheng Wang]

I think this is totally doable. I am working on something similar, lots of people think it is a dumb idea (bad performance, bad battery life and slow startup time), and, I want to see how bad it is. :)

ds

[Dongsheng Wang]

here is some links you might want to look at: 

http://www.burbas.se/artiklar/erlang-for-the-android-plattform/

https://github.com/couchbase/Android-Couchbase-SourceBuild

ds

[Andrew Pennebaker]

Can we include Android support by default in the official Erlang distribution? It would rock to just install Erlang, and run a single command like erlandroid, to setup a simple GUI app.