Yes, I’m still here.

Posted on April 14th, 2009 in Android Newsfeed by jf

Those crazy guys over at xda-dev have been asking where I am. I’m still around :). I’ve stopped visiting xda-dev on a regular basis, mainly due to the high volume of posts there now. I just can’t keep up with it any more.

Will I still be doing “JF” releases? Yes. I may (and I stress may) release a JFized version based on a build from the master branch of the AOSP source. In the mean time, Disconnect has released an image based on some work I had done to get google apps working in master, and haykuro is doing some nice work with the sapphire release. I also plan to keep releasing JF versions of new official G1 firmwares (English only) as they come out.

So what have I been spending my time on the past month or two? I’ve been working on smali/baksmali, an assembler/disassembler for the dex format used by dalvik, Android’s Java VM. . The word “smali” is Icelandic for “assembler” and baksmali is “disassembler” (at least as far as I can tell). If there is anyone reading this who actually speaks Icelandic, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Why Icelandic you ask? Because dalvik is named after an Icelandic fishing village.

The assembler uses a syntax that is based on jasmin’s syntax. It is close to the format that dedexer outputs, but not exactly the same. There are several changes needed to capture specific information needed for reassembly, e.g. the .register directive, prototype info for method calls, etc. Here is a simple “Hello World” class that it is able to assemble.

There is still a lot of work to do on it, so don’t expect anything too very soon.




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