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README_NATIVE_EXTENSION.md

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Native Extensions

Brief

Native extensions allows you to create plugins to the engine, using the Lua interface, native code and also functionality Defold provides via the Defold SDK.

Defold SDK

The defold sdk contains public headers and libraries from the engine. The internal structure of the sdk's are matching the structure in the DYNAMO_HOME folder.

E.g. (don't use these specific ones, since they might grow "old", they're simply here for copy paste reasons)

http://d.defold.com/archive/bdbf6ddaefb79c22214c86f945ea91d7fa6171de/engine/defoldsdk.zip http://d.defold.com/archive/bdbf6ddaefb79c22214c86f945ea91d7fa6171de/engine/x86_64-macos/defoldsdk.zip

Build SDK

The sdk is built, packaged and uploaded for each platform during the build_engine step in build.py. And when the archive_engine step is run, all platform sdk's are downloaded and merged into one zip file.

You can build each platform individually:

defold$ ./scripts/build.py build_platform_sdk --platform=x86_64-macos

build.yml

An important part of the sdk is the defold/share/extender/build.yml which controls the compiler settings for the server. As we include this file in every sdk, we make it simple to update. You can update it simply by running:

$ waf install

During development

Note that during the development of the SDK, you can run the local server, pointing it to your DYNAMO_HOME variable! This of course requires you to have build the engine beforehand:

defold$ ./scripts/build.py build_engine --platform=x86_64-macos

Set up the path for the DYNAMO_HOME variable:

export DYNAMO_HOME=/Users/mathiaswesterdahl/work/defold/tmp/dynamo_home

Editor 1 against live server

To use Editor 1 against the production extender service, you need to specify -Ddefold.sha1=<SHA1> as one of the run arguments for the editor. <SHA1> should be set to a commit hash that has been built on CI (since this is where the SDK is built and uploaded).

Local build server

There are two ways of launching a local server, via gradle or docker. Both require the same git repository, and both respect the DYNAMO_HOME environment variable.

Server repository

The local server can be built and started using the defold/extender repository.

$ git clone https://github.com/defold/extender.git

Gradle

To launch the server locally, via gradle:

$ cd extender
extender$ ./gradlew build
extender$ ./gradlew bootRun

Local Docker

The easiest way to debug is to use the docker container. First, install Docker

The gradle server also runs inside a docker container:

$ cd extender
extender$ ./scripts/build.sh
extender$ ./scripts/run.sh

Debugging inside docker

It's quite easy to get access to your docker container:

extender$ ./scipts/debug.sh

Editor 2

The native extensions are only supported via Editor 2.

Build

The setup steps are described here

Run

editor$ lein run

Preferences

In the preferences, select "Enable Native Extensions"

Project layout

The project layout is quite straight forward. Here's a simple example

VideoPlayer
  main
    ...
  include
    mylib.h
  lib
    x86_64-osx
      libmylib.a
  src
    myluamodule.cpp

Current issues

  • Don't put headers in the src/ folder! They currently get built as .cpp files

Build

Simply build with Command/Ctrl + B Any build errors will show up in the Editor 2 console.

Debugging

Currently, the downloaded (built) engine, is created as a temporary file. This makes it very hard to debug.