[pdftex] [Support Request] Cross-compilation of pdftex

[Kevin Jonas Young]

Thank you very much for your help! Although some questions persist...

I looked through the links you provided me with - River-Valley seems to be the most promising - 
however it seems suprising to me that the WinCE developers didn't release their source code.
Would have been very helpful to see how they compiled TeX in detail.

As far as the compilation of C/C++ on the Android target is concerned, you'd better refer to the
official documentation, as the process has simplified greatly over the past couple of years (your
link describes an outdated procedure)

	http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/overview.html#docs

as well as a really helpful blog entry

	http://vilimpoc.org/blog/2010/09/26/straightforward-android-native-executables/

If I could only get somebody to unravel the mysteries of the build system for pdfTeX, then
I could at least make some re-evaluations. From my combing through the source code it's
very clear that the entire pdfTeX source (from the TeXLive distribution) is written in C/C++;
nothing else. Of course I'm fully aware that this is a tough nut to crack. But I like the challenge.

I'd be very thankful if you could provide me with a contact from the pdfTeX developer team,
it's always easier to talk to someone who has built the system in consideration at least 
once before.

With kind regards,
Kevin

>   But that should not be much of an impediment. Kaveh Bazarghan and 
> Jonathan Kew have managed to compile XeTeX for the iPhone
> 
>     http://river-valley.tv/tex-as-an-ebook-reader/
> 
> and the work for the iPad and Android should be of similar magnitude.
> 
> The biggest impediment would be dealing with file system - which is very 
> different, in the iOS case, and not as much so on Android.
> 
> It is easy to compile C for Android target, and that should be the 
> preferred path here
> 
>     http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=682
> 
> I have used TeX in both WindowsCE and Sharp Zaurus which were way more 
> difficult to deal with ... here at the pointers to those compilations:
> 
>     
> http://web.archive.org/web/20091017212151/http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/texce.html
> 
>      http://www.snowelm.com/~t/doc/tips/20031120.en.html
> 
> The lack of a Android distribution is the sole reason why I pack 3 
> devices to go these days, I would be really nice to see it included in 
> TeXLive one day ... :)
> 
> Paulo Ney
> 
> 
> On 10/30/2011 4:09 PM, john Culleton wrote:
> > On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:45:04 +0200
> > Kevin Jonas Young<youngkevinjonas at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi support team of pdftex,
> >>
> >> I tried contacting the pdftex developers with my question, however I
> >> received no answer.
> >>
> >> First of all, thank you infinitely for writing and maintaining such a
> >> great piece of software, which pdftex is!
> >> I hope I can provide my share of service to the TEX community with
> >> what follows.
> >>
> >> My wish is to cross compile pdftex against the Android-ARM target
> >> (using NDK), because I can't stand the fact that for
> >> tablets there exists simply no good typesetting software. I had a look
> >> at your build system, but for a layman
> >> it's easy to get confused.
> >>
> >> Therefore I'd be thankful if some of you developers could provide me
> >> with a rundown on your build system and its
> >> complexity - for in order to compile pdftex with the Android SDK, I
> >> need to replicate the steps of your build system
> >> using the NDK build system (simplified makefiles).
> >>
> >> Or do you have better suggestions?
> >>
> >> Thanks a bunch!
> >> Kevin
> > TeX was not designed to work on, or produce output for, online devices
> > like tablets.
> >
> > Operational pdftex creates dvi or pdf files only. Either format
> > converts easily to Postscript. To get to operational pdftex for an OS
> > not falling in the MSWIN, OS X Linux or BSD families a compiler may
> > need to be written.
> >
> >
> > The original programming for TeX was done in a special language
> > invented by Donald Knuth. I don't know what it is written in now. I
> > suspect C.
> >
> > Specialized online devices tend to use variants of the html language,
> > such as moibus, kindle or ePub.
> >
> > Is it doable? of course. But the Great Wall of China was a doable
> > project also. When your tablet will support pdf then pdftex (or Context
> > etc.) will produce files for that device.
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Paulo Ney de Souza
> University of California, Berkeley


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