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I saw your post the other day on Google Groups. Many people, including myself, have been wondering the same thing — How to install ASE in an emulator. It would seem which ever forum you ask how to install it, all you get are the standard replies, “Read the documentation,” “Click here,” and “You’re doing it wrong.” Of course, none of those replies actually tells you how to install it. I too have read lots of documentation regarding ASE, and there is plenty of it to read. However, none of it actually explains how to install ASE in an emulator. It’s not that I’m stupid, it’s just that far too many people assume you have as much knowledge as them and often time those assumptions bypass important processes that the writers have taken for granted. You, thankfully, have not.

Thank you for the detailed write up. I’m really excited and looking forward to installing it. Unfortunately, it’s Thanksgiving Day and I found your article too late to attempt an install before family start arriving. Just know, over turkey and mashed potatoes, your article will be on my mind.

Hey, thanks for the reply. I wrote that post exactly for people like you, since you sound exactly like me: Similarly, I often feel like there are multiple parts to the process, and it’s that middle part that’s missing:
#1: Install the base software (well documented).
#2: Configure the software (zero documentation).
#3: Start doing stuff with the configured software (lots of web pages, newsgroups, etc).
It was my hope with this to fill in #2.
It took me several hours to figure it all out; my wife came in a couple times wondering why I was cussing at the computer 😉 I hope you get it working too, happy Thanksgiving.

Extremely tired and stuffed of Thanksgiving turkey, I couldn’t wait until morning to try the install. Worked like a charm!! Specifically, I was after a perl install rather than python as used in your write up. I just substituted the .apk and supporting zip files (as found in the first link of #3 in your write up above) with the ones designated for perl and Bingo! I’m in business running perl scripts. In addition, I will be making a Virtual Device (AVD) for each of the different options available, i.e., lua, python, etc. Thanks again.

Excellent. I think I’ll change the post a bit to call out that while I did Python install, they can be successfully substituted for others.

Akeric, I am getting a Motorola droid for Christmas and thought I’d get a jump by installing the SDK and scripting environment when I saw your detailed instructions. No problem with the SDK install, but I must have missed something somewhere wrt the emulator.

When you talk of a “command shell” I assume that is the little black box I used to know as the “DOS window”. I change the local directory to match where my ASE install package resides but attempts to “run” adb install ase_r14.apk result in an “unrecognizable” command message.

Also, you say to have the Emulator running in the background and “not locked”. I am not sure how I would either lock” or “unlock” the emulator at this point.

I’m sure I missed something somewhere, but am at a loss to figure out what.

FYI: I’m running Windows XP Home, SP3

Any additional hint you can provide would be much appreciated. BTW, I am the “idiot” designers try to proof their stuff from…………..

Clark

Let’s see what we can do 😉

Yes, the Command shell is the “black box thingy”. Sounds like you’ve already found it, but the easiest way in Win2K is go Start Menu -> Run -> and at the prompt type ‘cmd’ (no quotes). That will fire up the shell. Then you ‘cd’ to the dir in question to run the applications.

For the ‘unrecognizable’ command message, it usually means that you’re trying to execute a command that is either: A, not part of the Windows PATH system variable, or B, a command tied to an executable, but you’re not in the dir where that executable lives. My guess your problem is B: In the shell, you’ve changed directories to a dir where you *think* the ‘adb’ application lives, but something went wrong (you’re in the wrong dir). While you’re in that directory, you can type ‘dir’ to see a list of all files in there. Make sure adb is in there. Again, on my box with the default install that dir is:
C:\android-sdk-windows\tools

Finally for the “unlock” issue, I simply mean this: When the emulator runs, you first need to “unlock” the emulated phone by dragging the ‘unlock slider’ at the bottom of the screen from left to right (same thing you do on an iPhone to unlock it). I found that if this wasn’t done, I couldn’t use adb to update the phone.

Good luck!

Eric, thank you very much for the help. Somehow my install managed to scatter the files into several directories. Anyway, a reinstall went well and I have now gotten the SDK installed and the ASE running in the same directory.

Everything matches your web site example up to, and including, launching of the Python shell. There do seem to be a few missing steps between getting the Python shell (“Success”) and “Hitting the return button twice…”. A bullet item text may be hidden under the emulator screen image. But after entering the “import sys” commands as illustrated on the web page I do get the rest of the screen to display as shown. But after “Hitting the return button twice…” I just get another ‘>>>’ prompt. I never see a “menu”.

Clicking “MENU” on the emulator gives me a Menu with 4 choices:”Preferences”, “Reset”, “E-Mail” and “Special Keys”. It does not switch me to the module edit mode.

I did install the SDK slightly differently: I only installed android 2.0.1, the associated Google API, the Windows USB driver and the SDK documentation. I did not install the earlier android/Google packages.

Again, any hints would be appreciated…..I seem so close.

Clark

Hmm…. at this point I’m not sure why your emulator menu would be different than mine, I definitely get a different set of options than you when I hit the menu button, I still get similar results as described above. But honestly, I’m not saying what I have up there is the ‘definitive guide to using the emulator’, it’s just how I interacted with it on first try. I should also point out I think that whole ‘menu’ system is really clunky and non-intuitive… it took me a while to just figure out the little bit I have up there. I’d recomend you just ‘play’ with it and figure out how it works based on trial and error, that’s all I did.

However, I think the main goal is that you actually got it installed and can launch a Python shell in the emulator. You may want to ping the usergroups for any issues with interacting with the outlying software itself: http://groups.google.com/group/android-scripting

Glad you got it working.

FYI: The unlock bar doesn’t always appear in the emulator. I found that the first run after a Windows reboot usually causes the emulator to just go right into the home page bypassing the lock/unlock screen. I also noticed that the first line install (the apk file) usually fails when the emulator jumps past the unlock screen. Just retype the install line again and everything gets unlocked properly.

Another thing I noticed after updating the library was that Android 2.0.1 has a different unlock screen than earlier versions.

@Clark. In Windows, look under accessories for “Command Prompt.” That will bring up the DOS command window as well. CD (change directory) to where your SDK resides and once the cursor shows you’re in that directory, then run your adb commands. Also, to answer your other question regarding the Menu. You’re in the wrong window (you’re in the command prompt screen for the particular interpreter that you loaded, i.e., python, perl, lua, etc.). Once you get to the command prompt of the interpreter that you installed, back out one window (use the button to the right of the menu button on the emulator). Then you’ll see the message “Terminal Killed” and see Shell and whatever interpreters you have installed. If you back up one more window, you’ll see all of the sample scripts that were loaded and available. Back up one more window and you’re back at the home screen. Once everything is setup, you can also start at the home screen, run the ASE and the first screen you come to is the list of all of the scripts available to run (sample scripts mentioned above).

Thanks for the great post – it was very straightforward, easy to follow and I now have it running. Two things,1/ you call to download perl_scripts, I think you meant python_scripts

And 2/ it is important to note this only works with Android 2.0 emulator. I tried 1.5 and 1.6 and it would not load the apk.

Oops! Good catch on the incorrect link. And I updated the blog with the 2.0 comment. Thanks.

One more thing that helped me. To load a python program I developed onto the emulator and have it appear in the list of scripts, I had to use the following:

adb push ‘filename.py’ /sdcard/ase/scripts/’filename.py’

Nice. I honestly haven’t gotten that far yet. But now I know what to do 😉

Really a great article.

Thanks a lot for going through that and writing it up so clearly for all of us.

Let me just add, for those who are reading this after me, that the actual version of ASE is now r16, so if you download the .apk file, just change the 14 into 16 in above explanation.
Python is now in r2 instead of r0, but you don’t need to download and push those files anyway, ASE automatically gets them via internet and unpacks them when you add the pyhton interpreter.
In other words, in step #3, all lines that have the word “python” in them can be ignored now.

Thanks again

Just Wowww!!
Thanks a lot for giving such a detailed and easy explanation.

Thanks for the tip Wolfgang. I’ve updated the post to reflect this.

Thanks, nice job. I’ve been waiting for a great language to play with on Android Emulator and phone… and now I can.

i want to find out how to unlock emulator from cmd

Hi,

I notice you installed this on a Win2k system.

When I do that and I try to start the emulator I get a WS2_32.dll error
“The procedure entry point freeaddrinfo could not be located in the
dynamic link library WS2_32.dll”
Did you get this error, if so, how did you circumvent it?

The reason I ask is that the freeaddrinfo was only added in Windows XP and later and is not available in Win2k

AH. It’s because I had a typo I installed it on a winXP system, not win2k. I’ve updated my blog, sorry about the misdirection.

I tried to follow your instructions on my Mac OS X. No problems including the command:

adb install ase_r25.apk

but when I execute:

adb push python_scripts_r7.zip /sdcard

I get the answer:

failed to copy ‘python_scripts_r7.zip’ to ‘/sdcard’: Is a directory

Any hints?

I unfortunately have no experience with this on the Mac (or using Mac’s in general). Maybe some other reader will have an idea.

I found a much simpler way to install ASE and any of its scripting languages on an Android phone or on its emulator. Just follow these steps:

(1) Using phone’s (or emulator’s) browser download from http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/downloads/list the latest version of ASE application (at this moment ase_r25.apk).

(2) Slide down the notification page and you will see a line for this download: just click on and it will ask whether you want to install it — go ahead.

(3) Open ASE after the installation is finished.

(4) Click: Menu -> View -> Interpreters (only “Shell” will be exhibited)

(5) Click: Menu -> Add: a list of interpreters (Python, Ruby, etc) will be shown.
Choose your favorite and follow the instructions. In case of Python (the only one I installed) it can take a few minutes.

It worked beautifully!

— tsf

Hi Akeric

I have installed the ASE on the emulator. After installing i am getting the ASE icon. On launching it, i can see list of scripts.
I went to
-> Menu -> Interpreters -> Python2.6.2

But i am facing a different issue.

/data/data/com.google.ase/python/bin/python : not found

Any solution

I’m getting “ImportError: No module named collections” when I run any script:
File “/sdcard/ase/extras/python/android.py”, line 17 in import collections
Any fix ideas gratefully appreciated.
python r7
python scripts r8
pyhton extras r8

This is a good post. It has really helped, but I hit a wall.

I am trying to install Python and I get a message that the SDCARD is read-only…

C:\TEMP\android-sdk-windows\tools>adb push python_scripts_r0.zip /sdcard
failed to copy ‘python_scripts_r0.zip’ to ‘/sdcard/python_scripts_r0.zip’: Read-only file system

When I execute “adb shell”, then “ls -l” I see this…

d——— system system 2010-08-02 19:45 sdcard

When I execute “chmod 777 sdcard”, I get this…

Unable to chmod sdcard: Read-only file system

Thanks for the detailed description of steps involved in installation and collection of links required for the same. I followed the steps mentioned here exactly in the same sequence and it worked quite well for me.

Thanks again

I recently installed a new ROM on my rooted Droid and needed to reload ASE and all of my scripts on the phone again. I kept missing a step and couldn’t remember exactly how to install it correctly, so, of course, I Googled it and this article popped up. Ironically, and even spookier, it was pretty much exactly a year ago when I first found this very article and loaded ASE the first time. See my replies above.

I see now that downloading it directly from the phone’s/emulator’s browser has made it even simpler as are the various interpreters. See T.S. Ferreira’s reply above.

Thanks again for the great article. It helped me out for a second time.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving 😛 And yah, you were the first reply!

Hello
I am getting error in this command “C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>adb push python_scripts_r0.zip /sdcard” and the error message coming is this one “failed to copy ‘python_scripts_r0.zip’ to ‘/sdcard’: Is a directory”. Can you help me on this.

Thanks

I’ve the same problem

I’ve switched operating systems and computers since I originally authored this post. If someone else has a solution to the problem, please post it

I followed the rest of the instructions and it worked

adb push needs another slash at the end “/sdcard/”
Anyway, I was installing PHP and sl4a automatically downloaded and installed it when I selected it from the list.

I have a problem when im start a python i see this error:

/data/data/com.google.ase/python/bin/python: permissin denied
$
How can i fix this ?

I could kiss you bro!

Missing the SDcard configuration step on step #2 got me off track and cost me a whole day,

but, finally I managed to get it up and running!

I can’t thank you enough!

@intbt
Very helpful tip!
Thanks a million!

Hi, all

how to install sl4a and python on android 2.3.3 for mobile
samsung galagsy 2

thank you.

Hi, all

how to manually install sl4a and python on android 2.3.3 for mobile
samsung galagsy 2

for know i have these pakges:-
1- sl4a4.apk
2- python_for-android_4.apk
3- examples.zip
4- extract.zip

thank you.

The gift keeps on giving. I used your procedure (with some liberal
interpretation) to install sl4a and python on a gingerbread AVD –
even the comment on Japanese language settings.

Thanks

If you’re getting this error:
“failed to copy ‘python_scripts_r0.zip’ to ‘/sdcard’: Is a directory”

try the same command you’re trying earlier but this time with a forward slash added to /sdcard, meaning replace /sdcard with /sdcard/ and keep the remaining part of the command as earlier and it’ll work like a charm.

Thanks so much.
I followed step by step and it works now.
Only one thing should edit is that /sdcard/ instead of /sdcard

Many thanks again.

now days, you can use,

PythonForAndroid_r4.apk

and

sl4a_r4.apk

instead of ASE. both available at

http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/downloads/list?q=label:Featured

awesome man, i am really thankful to you for posting such a knowledgeable post.

himraj13,

You said PythonForAndroid_r4.apk, but over on the PythonForAndroid web page (http://code.google.com/p/python-for-android/downloads/list) they have:

PythonForAndroid-r7b1.apk

This is the first pre release of Py4A, main difference between this version and previous ones is that now you don’t need to install Py4A once the APK is installed.

Do you know if -r4 is newer/older than -r7b1?

-Sam

Thanks for this one place reference for setting up python. It was really helpful to me in setting up android dev env for me.

Glad it’s still valid! Can’t believe I authored it going on three years ago