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59 :: Nimrod-on-ios example

• gradha (orginal) [2012-07-22T23:45:33+02:00] view original

  Using knowledge gained from http://forum.nimrod-code.org/t/50 I created a small step-by-step guide to create an iOS project which calls nimrod code at https://github.com/gradha/nimrod-on-ios. More specifically, the example uses the backend code from the lazarus example. Things I found:

  1. As addressed in the forum thread, no interface file is done, which is boring. I wonder if this is on any roadmap and if it is easy/hard to do.
  2. During the code generation nimbase.h is not generated in the nimcache directory. I didn't find any compiler switch to do this, so I resorted to copy it by hand (see step 8). However, it would be nice if there was a way for nimrod to also create there the nimbase.h file.
  3. By using nimbase.h and other code generated by the nimrod compiler, LGPL code is being included into the iOS final binary, thus producing an LGPL binary. This is completely incompatible with any app store aleady in spirit (even if users get source code for your app they can't relink freely and do their modifications). Also authors of the LGPL code can at any time force Apple to remove the program from the appstore. Which basically means that nobody in his sane mind would use Nimrod for an iOS project. I believe this could be solved providing an exception to the static linking on iOS (and possibly other platforms too like Android) without having to change the license.

  I would like to hear your comments. Also, inclusion of the project into nimrod's example directory would be nice if we could figure out a way to structure the directories in such a way that one could launch the Lazarus or the iOS project and the they would both reference the same nimrod code, thus showing cross-platform reuse.

  I'll be looking now at an Android version.

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• Araq (orginal) [2012-07-23T00:31:54+02:00] view original

  Wow, thank you very much!

  1. It's very easy to add (should take me half a day). Please make a feature request on github.
  2. Not sure about that feature. It's possible to generate a shell script that invokes the C compiler. This script already contains -I$nimrod/lib. And nimbase.h doesn't change (it's the only hand written C code in Nimrod) so it's only necessary to copy it once.
  3. This exception is already included in the license. Static linking with the stdlib is allowed as far as I can tell (but I'm no lawyer). But I'm considering to change the license of the stdlib to something more permissive instead; nimbase.h will likely become public domain and the rest Apache license.
  4. Code sharing for the examples is nice and should be easy to do.

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• dom96 (orginal) [2012-07-23T01:21:04+02:00] view original

  Hey! This is absolutely brilliant work.

  Too bad I don't have an iPhone. I was actually planning to try to get Nimrod working on Android, i'm glad you are going to try this now; I am unfortunately too busy with other projects at the moment but if you get that working I will gladly take a look at it! Quite an exciting project :D

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• rafaelvasco (orginal) [2012-07-23T03:10:49+02:00] view original

  Wow really exciting. Great contribution. Only full opengl support left now to make everything perfect :D

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• gradha (orginal) [2012-07-23T18:25:52+02:00] view original

  @Araq

  1. Ok, created.
  2. Yeah, I think I'm just going to copy it manually from the library into the nimcache in my shell script, so it doesn't get outdated and I don't keep a static copy. I didn't want nimrod to compile a library for me because then nimrod would have to know stuff it doesn't know, like what platforms is the iOS project aimed at and generate code for them (armv6/7) and build a library with both versions.

  But using xcode's llvm to compile ignores the nimrod environment setup and therefore you either copy the file or add to the project a new include switch to find the header, which is not so portable between users and different machines. Not that this is much of a problem, I was just looking into making the examplie more resilient to compilation errors to be experienced by other users.

  3. Cool, I actually did try searching lib/lgpl.txt for it but failed at comprehension.
  4. I'll submit some when/if I do an android version, so at least those can be shown as example.

  @dom96

  I'm only doing it for the lulz, so I may not end up doing it if it turns out to be too painful. Just thinking of eclipse gives me goosebumps. Still, I would like to make a small sqlite example in nimrod working for both platforms.

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• Araq (orginal) [2012-07-23T20:46:21+02:00] view original

  3. lib/copying.txt contains the relevant part: "As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library."

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