tools/layoutlib/create/README.txt - platform/frameworks/base - Gitiles

 # Copyright (C) 2008 The Android Open Source Project


 - Description -
 ---------------

 Layoutlib_create generates a JAR library used by the Eclipse graphical layout editor
 to perform layout.


 - Usage -
 ---------

  ./layoutlib_create path/to/android.jar destination.jar


 - Design Overview -
 -------------------

 Layoutlib_create uses the "android.jar" containing all the Java code used by Android
 as generated by the Android build, right before the classes are converted to a DEX format.

 The Android JAR can't be used directly in Eclipse:
 - it contains references to native code (which we want to avoid in Eclipse),
 - some classes need to be overridden, for example all the drawing code that is
   replaced by Java 2D calls in Eclipse.
 - some of the classes that need to be changed are final and/or we need access
   to their private internal state.

 Consequently this tool:
 - parses the input JAR,
 - modifies some of the classes directly using some bytecode manipulation,
 - filters some packages and removes some that we don't want to end in the output JAR,
 - injects some new classes,
 - and generates a modified JAR file that is suitable for the Android plugin
   for Eclipse to perform rendering.

 The ASM library is used to do the bytecode modification using its visitor pattern API.

 The layoutlib_create is *NOT* generic. There is no configuration file. Instead all the
 configuration is done in the main() method and the CreateInfo structure is expected to
 change with the Android platform as new classes are added, changed or removed.

 The resulting JAR is used by layoutlib_bridge (a.k.a. "the bridge"), also part of the
 platform, that provides all the necessary missing implementation for rendering graphics
 in Eclipse.


 - Implementation Notes -
 ------------------------

 The tool works in two phases:
 - first analyze the input jar (AsmAnalyzer class)
 - then generate the output jar (AsmGenerator class),


 - Analyzer
 ----------

 The goal of the analyzer is to create a graph of all the classes from the input JAR
 with their dependencies and then only keep the ones we want.

 To do that, the analyzer is created with a list of base classes to keep -- everything
 that derives from these is kept. Currently the one such class is android.view.View:
 since we want to render layouts, anything that is sort of the view needs to be kept.

 The analyzer is also given a list of class names to keep in the output.
 This is done using shell-like glob patterns that filter on the fully-qualified
 class names, for example "android.*.R**" ("*" does not matches dots whilst "**" does,
 and "." and "$" are interpreted as-is).
 In practice we almost but not quite request the inclusion of full packages.

 With this information, the analyzer parses the input zip to find all the classes.
 All classes deriving from the requested bases classes are kept.
 All classes which name matched the glob pattern are kept.
 The analysis then finds all the dependencies of the classes that are to be kept
 using an ASM visitor on the class, the field types, the method types and annotations types.
 Classes that belong to the current JRE are excluded.

 The output of the analyzer is a set of ASM ClassReader instances which are then
 fed to the generator.


 - Generator
 -----------

 The generator is constructed from a CreateInfo struct that acts as a config file
 and lists:
 - the classes to inject in the output JAR -- these classes are directly implemented
   in layoutlib_create and will be used to interface with the renderer in Eclipse.
 - specific methods to override (see method stubs details below).
 - specific methods to remove based on their return type.
 - specific classes to rename.

 Each of these are specific strategies we use to be able to modify the Android code
 to fit within the Eclipse renderer. These strategies are explained beow.

 The core method of the generator is transform(): it takes an input ASM ClassReader
 and modifies it to produce a byte array suitable for the final JAR file.

 The first step of the transformation is changing the name of the class in case
 we requested the class to be renamed. This uses the RenameClassAdapter to also rename
 all inner classes and references in methods and types. Note that other classes are
 not transformed and keep referencing the original name.

 The TransformClassAdapter is then used to process the potentially renamed class.
 All protected or private classes are market as public.
 All classes are made non-final.
 Interfaces are left as-is.

 If a method has a return type that must be erased, the whole method is skipped.
 Methods are also changed from protected/private to public.
 The code of the methods is then kept as-is, except for native methods which are
 replaced by a stub. Methods that are to be overridden are also replaced by a stub.

 Finally fields are also visited and changed from protected/private to public.


 - Method stubs
 --------------

 As indicated above, all native and overridden methods are replaced by a stub.
 We don't have the code to replace with in layoutlib_create.
 Instead the StubMethodAdapter replaces the code of the method by a call to
 OverrideMethod.invokeX(). When using the final JAR, the bridge can register
 listeners from these overridden method calls based on the method signatures.

 The listeners are currently pretty basic: we only pass the signature of the
 method being called, its caller object and a flag indicating whether the
 method was native. We do not currently provide the parameters. The listener
 can however specify the return value of the overridden method.

 An extension being worked on is to actually replace these listeners by
 direct calls to a delegate class, complete with parameters.


 - Strategies
 ------------

 We currently have 4 strategies to deal with overriding the rendering code
 and make it run in Eclipse. Most of these strategies are implemented hand-in-hand
 by the bridge (which runs in Eclipse) and the generator.


 1- Class Injection

 This is the easiest: we currently inject 4 classes, namely:
 - OverrideMethod and its associated MethodListener and MethodAdapter are used
   to intercept calls to some specific methods that are stubbed out and change
   their return value.
 - CreateInfo class, which configured the generator. Not used yet, but could
   in theory help us track what the generator changed.


 2- Overriding methods

 As explained earlier, the creator doesn't have any replacement code for
 methods to override. Instead it removes the original code and replaces it
 by a call to a specific OveriddeMethod.invokeX(). The bridge then registers
 a listener on the method signature and can provide an implementation.


 3- Renaming classes

 This simply changes the name of a class in its definition, as well as all its
 references in internal inner classes and methods.
 Calls from other classes are not modified -- they keep referencing the original
 class name. This allows the bridge to literally replace an implementation.

 An example will make this easier: android.graphics.Paint is the main drawing
 class that we need to replace. To do so, the generator renames Paint to _original_Paint.
 Later the bridge provides its own replacement version of Paint which will be used
 by the rest of the Android stack. The replacement version of Paint can still use
 (either by inheritance or delegation) all the original non-native code of _original_Paint
 if it so desires.

 Some of the Android classes are basically wrappers over native objects and since
 we don't have the native code in Eclipse, we need to provide a full alternate
 implementation. Sub-classing doesn't work as some native methods are static and
 we don't control object creation.

 This won't rename/replace the inner static methods of a given class.


 4- Method erasure based on return type

 This is mostly an implementation detail of the bridge: in the Paint class
 mentioned above, some inner static classes are used to pass around
 attributes (e.g. FontMetrics, or the Style enum) and all the original implementation
 is native.

 In this case we have a strategy that tells the generator that anything returning, for
 example, the inner class Paint$Style in the Paint class should be discarded and the
 bridge will provide its own implementation.


 --
 end
	# Copyright (C) 2008 The Android Open Source Project


	- Description -
	---------------

	Layoutlib_create generates a JAR library used by the Eclipse graphical layout editor
	to perform layout.


	- Usage -
	---------

	./layoutlib_create path/to/android.jar destination.jar


	- Design Overview -
	-------------------

	Layoutlib_create uses the "android.jar" containing all the Java code used by Android
	as generated by the Android build, right before the classes are converted to a DEX format.

	The Android JAR can't be used directly in Eclipse:
	- it contains references to native code (which we want to avoid in Eclipse),
	- some classes need to be overridden, for example all the drawing code that is
	replaced by Java 2D calls in Eclipse.
	- some of the classes that need to be changed are final and/or we need access
	to their private internal state.

	Consequently this tool:
	- parses the input JAR,
	- modifies some of the classes directly using some bytecode manipulation,
	- filters some packages and removes some that we don't want to end in the output JAR,
	- injects some new classes,
	- and generates a modified JAR file that is suitable for the Android plugin
	for Eclipse to perform rendering.

	The ASM library is used to do the bytecode modification using its visitor pattern API.

	The layoutlib_create is NOT generic. There is no configuration file. Instead all the
	configuration is done in the main() method and the CreateInfo structure is expected to
	change with the Android platform as new classes are added, changed or removed.

	The resulting JAR is used by layoutlib_bridge (a.k.a. "the bridge"), also part of the
	platform, that provides all the necessary missing implementation for rendering graphics
	in Eclipse.



	- Implementation Notes -
	------------------------

	The tool works in two phases:
	- first analyze the input jar (AsmAnalyzer class)
	- then generate the output jar (AsmGenerator class),


	- Analyzer
	----------

	The goal of the analyzer is to create a graph of all the classes from the input JAR
	with their dependencies and then only keep the ones we want.

	To do that, the analyzer is created with a list of base classes to keep -- everything
	that derives from these is kept. Currently the one such class is android.view.View:
	since we want to render layouts, anything that is sort of the view needs to be kept.

	The analyzer is also given a list of class names to keep in the output.
	This is done using shell-like glob patterns that filter on the fully-qualified
	class names, for example "android..R" ("" does not matches dots whilst "**" does,
	and "." and "$" are interpreted as-is).
	In practice we almost but not quite request the inclusion of full packages.

	With this information, the analyzer parses the input zip to find all the classes.
	All classes deriving from the requested bases classes are kept.
	All classes which name matched the glob pattern are kept.
	The analysis then finds all the dependencies of the classes that are to be kept
	using an ASM visitor on the class, the field types, the method types and annotations types.
	Classes that belong to the current JRE are excluded.

	The output of the analyzer is a set of ASM ClassReader instances which are then
	fed to the generator.


	- Generator
	-----------

	The generator is constructed from a CreateInfo struct that acts as a config file
	and lists:
	- the classes to inject in the output JAR -- these classes are directly implemented
	in layoutlib_create and will be used to interface with the renderer in Eclipse.
	- specific methods to override (see method stubs details below).
	- specific methods to remove based on their return type.
	- specific classes to rename.

	Each of these are specific strategies we use to be able to modify the Android code
	to fit within the Eclipse renderer. These strategies are explained beow.

	The core method of the generator is transform(): it takes an input ASM ClassReader
	and modifies it to produce a byte array suitable for the final JAR file.

	The first step of the transformation is changing the name of the class in case
	we requested the class to be renamed. This uses the RenameClassAdapter to also rename
	all inner classes and references in methods and types. Note that other classes are
	not transformed and keep referencing the original name.

	The TransformClassAdapter is then used to process the potentially renamed class.
	All protected or private classes are market as public.
	All classes are made non-final.
	Interfaces are left as-is.

	If a method has a return type that must be erased, the whole method is skipped.
	Methods are also changed from protected/private to public.
	The code of the methods is then kept as-is, except for native methods which are
	replaced by a stub. Methods that are to be overridden are also replaced by a stub.

	Finally fields are also visited and changed from protected/private to public.


	- Method stubs
	--------------

	As indicated above, all native and overridden methods are replaced by a stub.
	We don't have the code to replace with in layoutlib_create.
	Instead the StubMethodAdapter replaces the code of the method by a call to
	OverrideMethod.invokeX(). When using the final JAR, the bridge can register
	listeners from these overridden method calls based on the method signatures.

	The listeners are currently pretty basic: we only pass the signature of the
	method being called, its caller object and a flag indicating whether the
	method was native. We do not currently provide the parameters. The listener
	can however specify the return value of the overridden method.

	An extension being worked on is to actually replace these listeners by
	direct calls to a delegate class, complete with parameters.


	- Strategies
	------------

	We currently have 4 strategies to deal with overriding the rendering code
	and make it run in Eclipse. Most of these strategies are implemented hand-in-hand
	by the bridge (which runs in Eclipse) and the generator.


	1- Class Injection

	This is the easiest: we currently inject 4 classes, namely:
	- OverrideMethod and its associated MethodListener and MethodAdapter are used
	to intercept calls to some specific methods that are stubbed out and change
	their return value.
	- CreateInfo class, which configured the generator. Not used yet, but could
	in theory help us track what the generator changed.


	2- Overriding methods

	As explained earlier, the creator doesn't have any replacement code for
	methods to override. Instead it removes the original code and replaces it
	by a call to a specific OveriddeMethod.invokeX(). The bridge then registers
	a listener on the method signature and can provide an implementation.


	3- Renaming classes

	This simply changes the name of a class in its definition, as well as all its
	references in internal inner classes and methods.
	Calls from other classes are not modified -- they keep referencing the original
	class name. This allows the bridge to literally replace an implementation.

	An example will make this easier: android.graphics.Paint is the main drawing
	class that we need to replace. To do so, the generator renames Paint to _original_Paint.
	Later the bridge provides its own replacement version of Paint which will be used
	by the rest of the Android stack. The replacement version of Paint can still use
	(either by inheritance or delegation) all the original non-native code of _original_Paint
	if it so desires.

	Some of the Android classes are basically wrappers over native objects and since
	we don't have the native code in Eclipse, we need to provide a full alternate
	implementation. Sub-classing doesn't work as some native methods are static and
	we don't control object creation.

	This won't rename/replace the inner static methods of a given class.


	4- Method erasure based on return type

	This is mostly an implementation detail of the bridge: in the Paint class
	mentioned above, some inner static classes are used to pass around
	attributes (e.g. FontMetrics, or the Style enum) and all the original implementation
	is native.

	In this case we have a strategy that tells the generator that anything returning, for
	example, the inner class Paint$Style in the Paint class should be discarded and the
	bridge will provide its own implementation.


	--
	end