{ "content": [ { "type": "text", "text": "# PERLANDROID (man)\n\n## NAME\n\nperlandroid - Perl under Android\n\n## SYNOPSIS\n\nThe first portions of this document contains instructions to cross-compile Perl for Android\n2.0 and later, using the binaries provided by Google. The latter portions describe how to\nbuild perl native using one of the toolchains available on the Play Store.\n\n## DESCRIPTION\n\nThis document describes how to set up your host environment when attempting to build Perl for\nAndroid.\n\n## Sections\n\n- **NAME**\n- **SYNOPSIS**\n- **DESCRIPTION**\n- **Cross-compilation** (8 subsections)\n- **AUTHOR**\n\nUse structuredContent.sections for detailed options, examples, and full documentation.\n" } ], "structuredContent": { "command": "PERLANDROID", "section": "", "mode": "man", "summary": "perlandroid - Perl under Android", "synopsis": "The first portions of this document contains instructions to cross-compile Perl for Android\n2.0 and later, using the binaries provided by Google. The latter portions describe how to\nbuild perl native using one of the toolchains available on the Play Store.", "tldr_summary": null, "tldr_examples": [], "tldr_source": null, "flags": [], "examples": [], "see_also": [], "section_outline": [ { "name": "NAME", "lines": 2, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "SYNOPSIS", "lines": 4, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "DESCRIPTION", "lines": 3, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "Cross-compilation", "lines": 10, "subsections": [ { "name": "Get the Android Native Development Kit (NDK)", "lines": 3 }, { "name": "Determine the architecture you'll be cross-compiling for", "lines": 11 }, { "name": "Set up a standalone toolchain", "lines": 10 }, { "name": "adb or ssh?", "lines": 58 }, { "name": "Configure and beyond", "lines": 37 }, { "name": "Native Builds", "lines": 3 }, { "name": "CCTools", "lines": 13 }, { "name": "Termux", "lines": 9 } ] }, { "name": "AUTHOR", "lines": 5, "subsections": [] } ], "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "perlandroid - Perl under Android\n", "subsections": [] }, "SYNOPSIS": { "content": "The first portions of this document contains instructions to cross-compile Perl for Android\n2.0 and later, using the binaries provided by Google. The latter portions describe how to\nbuild perl native using one of the toolchains available on the Play Store.\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "This document describes how to set up your host environment when attempting to build Perl for\nAndroid.\n", "subsections": [] }, "Cross-compilation": { "content": "These instructions assume an Unixish build environment on your host system; they've been\ntested on Linux and OS X, and may work on Cygwin and MSYS. While Google also provides an NDK\nfor Windows, these steps won't work native there, although it may be possible to cross-\ncompile through different means.\n\nIf your host system's architecture is 32 bits, remember to change the \"x8664\"'s below to\n\"x86\"'s. On a similar vein, the examples below use the 4.8 toolchain; if you want to use\nsomething older or newer (for example, the 4.4.3 toolchain included in the 8th revision of\nthe NDK), just change those to the relevant version.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "Get the Android Native Development Kit (NDK)", "content": "You can download the NDK from .\nYou'll want the normal, non-legacy version.\n" }, { "name": "Determine the architecture you'll be cross-compiling for", "content": "There's three possible options: arm-linux-androideabi for ARM, mipsel-linux-android for MIPS,\nand simply x86 for x86. As of 2014, most Android devices run on ARM, so that is generally a\nsafe bet.\n\nWith those two in hand, you should add\n\n$ANDROIDNDK/toolchains/$TARGETARCH-4.8/prebuilt/`uname | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`-x8664/bin\n\nto your \"PATH\", where $ANDROIDNDK is the location where you unpacked the NDK, and\n$TARGETARCH is your target's architecture.\n" }, { "name": "Set up a standalone toolchain", "content": "This creates a working sysroot that we can feed to Configure later.\n\n$ export ANDROIDTOOLCHAIN=/tmp/my-toolchain-$TARGETARCH\n$ export SYSROOT=$ANDROIDTOOLCHAIN/sysroot\n$ $ANDROIDNDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh \\\n--platform=android-9 \\\n--install-dir=$ANDROIDTOOLCHAIN \\\n--system=`uname | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`-x8664 \\\n--toolchain=$TARGETARCH-4.8\n" }, { "name": "adb or ssh?", "content": "adb is the Android Debug Bridge. For our purposes, it's basically a way of establishing an\nssh connection to an Android device without having to install anything on the device itself,\nas long as the device is either on the same local network as the host, or it is connected to\nthe host through USB.\n\nPerl can be cross-compiled using either adb or a normal ssh connection; in general, if you\ncan connect your device to the host using a USB port, or if you don't feel like installing an\nsshd app on your device, you may want to use adb, although you may be forced to switch to ssh\nif your device is not rooted and you're unlucky -- more on that later. Alternatively, if\nyou're cross-compiling to an emulator, you'll have to use adb.\n\nadb\n\nTo use adb, download the Android SDK from .\nThe \"SDK Tools Only\" version should suffice -- if you downloaded the ADT Bundle, you can find\nthe sdk under $ADTBUNDLE/sdk/.\n\nAdd $ANDROIDSDK/platform-tools to your \"PATH\", which should give you access to adb. You'll\nnow have to find your device's name using \"adb devices\", and later pass that to Configure\nthrough \"-Dtargethost=$DEVICE\".\n\nHowever, before calling Configure, you need to check if using adb is a viable choice in the\nfirst place. Because Android doesn't have a /tmp, nor does it allow executables in the\nsdcard, we need to find somewhere in the device for Configure to put some files in, as well\nas for the tests to run in. If your device is rooted, then you're good. Try running these:\n\n$ export TARGETDIR=/mnt/asec/perl\n$ adb -s $DEVICE shell \"echo sh -c '\\\"mkdir $TARGETDIR\\\"' | su --\"\n\nWhich will create the directory we need, and you can move on to the next step. /mnt/asec is\nmounted as a tmpfs in Android, but it's only accessible to root.\n\nIf your device is not rooted, you may still be in luck. Try running this:\n\n$ export TARGETDIR=/data/local/tmp/perl\n$ adb -s $DEVICE shell \"mkdir $TARGETDIR\"\n\nIf the command works, you can move to the next step, but beware: You'll have to remove the\ndirectory from the device once you are done! Unlike //mmnntt//aasseecc, //ddaattaa//llooccaall//ttmmpp may not get\nautomatically garbage collected once you shut off the phone.\n\nIf neither of those work, then you can't use adb to cross-compile to your device. Either try\nrooting it, or go for the ssh route.\n\nssh\n\nTo use ssh, you'll need to install and run a sshd app and set it up properly. There are\nseveral paid and free apps that do this rather easily, so you should be able to spot one on\nthe store. Remember that Perl requires a passwordless connection, so set up a public key.\n\nNote that several apps spew crap to stderr every time you connect, which can throw off\nConfigure. You may need to monkeypatch the part of Configure that creates \"run-ssh\" to have\nit discard stderr.\n\nSince you're using ssh, you'll have to pass some extra arguments to Configure:\n\n-Dtargetrun=ssh -Dtargethost=$TARGETHOST -Dtargetuser=$TARGETUSER -Dtargetport=$TARGETPORT\n" }, { "name": "Configure and beyond", "content": "With all of the previous done, you're now ready to call Configure.\n\nIf using adb, a \"basic\" Configure line will look like this:\n\n$ ./Configure -des -Dusedevel -Dusecrosscompile -Dtargetrun=adb \\\n-Dcc=$TARGETARCH-gcc \\\n-Dsysroot=$SYSROOT \\\n-Dtargetdir=$TARGETDIR \\\n-Dtargethost=$DEVICE\n\nIf using ssh, it's not too different -- we just change targetrun to ssh, and pass in\ntargetuser and targetport. It ends up looking like this:\n\n$ ./Configure -des -Dusedevel -Dusecrosscompile -Dtargetrun=ssh \\\n-Dcc=$TARGETARCH-gcc \\\n-Dsysroot=$SYSROOT \\\n-Dtargetdir=$TARGETDIR \\\n-Dtargethost=\"$TARGETHOST\" \\\n-Dtargetuser=$TARGETUSER \\\n-Dtargetport=$TARGETPORT\n\nNow you're ready to run \"make\" and \"make test\"!\n\nAs a final word of warning, if you're using adb, \"make test\" may appear to hang; this is\nbecause it doesn't output anything until it finishes running all tests. You can check its\nprogress by logging into the device, moving to $TARGETDIR, and looking at the file\noutput.stdout.\n\nNotes\n\n• If you are targetting x86 Android, you will have to change \"$TARGETARCH-gcc\" to\n\"i686-linux-android-gcc\".\n\n• On some older low-end devices -- think early 2.2 era -- some tests, particularly\nt/re/uniprops.t, may crash the phone, causing it to turn itself off once, and then back\non again.\n" }, { "name": "Native Builds", "content": "While Google doesn't provide a native toolchain for Android, you can still get one from the\nPlay Store.\n" }, { "name": "CCTools", "content": "You may be able to get the CCTools app, which is free. Keep in mind that you want a full\ntoolchain; some apps tend to default to installing only a barebones version without some\nimportant utilities, like ar or nm.\n\nOnce you have the toolchain set up properly, the only remaining hurdle is actually locating\nwhere in the device it was installed in. For example, CCTools installs its toolchain in\n/data/data/com.pdaxrom.cctools/root/cctools. With the path in hand, compiling perl is little\nmore than:\n\nexport SYSROOT=\nexport LDLIBRARYPATH=\"$SYSROOT/lib:`pwd`:`pwd`/lib:`pwd`/lib/auto:$LDLIBRARYPATH\"\nsh Configure -des -Dsysroot=$SYSROOT -Alibpth=\"/system/lib /vendor/lib\"\n" }, { "name": "Termux", "content": "Termux provides an Android terminal emulator and Linux environment. It\ncomes with a cross-compiled perl already installed.\n\nNatively compiling perl 5.30 or later should be as straightforward as:\n\nsh Configure -des -Alibpth=\"/system/lib /vendor/lib\"\n\nThis certainly works on Android 8.1 (Oreo) at least...\n" } ] }, "AUTHOR": { "content": "Brian Fraser \n\n\n\nperl v5.34.0 2025-07-25 PERLANDROID(1)", "subsections": [] } } } }