Error checker says that getActivity() function does not exist

[codeanticode]

@omerjerk @Manindra29 this is still happening with the latest revision of Processing and the mode. Do you guys think there is a simple solution?

[Manindra29]

The sdk was not being initialised when getSearchPath() is called. So maybe that was causing the bug? When you start up Android Mode for the first time, a NPE occurs in getSearchPath() (stack trace visible in std.err).

I can test the fix further if you can share a piece of sample code to reproduce this error.

Please take a look at my PR too.

[codeanticode]

Hi Manindra, thanks for the PR. I will check if it fixes the issue.

[codeanticode]

No, the getActivity() method is still marked as not recognized after applying your PR:

[Manindra29]

I looked at this again, and it reveals a much bigger issue. So ErrorCheckerService (ECS) was designed originally for just JavaMode. Java sketches are wrapped with:
class extend PApplet {
... user code...

..main method..
}

For Android Mode, this is done completely differently. The parent class needs to extend Activity class to have getActivity() available. I saw some of this template code in AndroidBuild.java.

Right now, ECS is only designed to handle JavaMode. Moreover, ECS is designed to only handle single .java source files. Afaik, Android apps usually require multiple class files, not sure if it's the same for AndroidMode. Making ECS fully compatible with Android Mode will probably require some major modifications (non-trivial). So this will probably require a larger effort than a single PR.

[omerjerk]

@Manindra29
getActivity() method is available in Fragment class which is what our sketch class extends.

[Manindra29]

I see. Can you share what the generated source files look like for a basic android sketch after they've been converted to .java files for an android sketch so that I can get the complete picture?

[codeanticode]

This is what I get when I export the sketch above as Android project:

• MainActivity.java

package processing.test.getactivity_171;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Window;
import android.view.WindowManager;
import android.widget.FrameLayout;
import android.view.ViewGroup.LayoutParams;
import  android.app.FragmentTransaction;
import processing.core.PApplet;
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
    PApplet fragment;
    private static final String MAIN_FRAGMENT_TAG = "main_fragment";
    int viewId = 0x1000;
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        Window window = getWindow();
        requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
window.setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_IN_SCREEN,WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_IN_SCREEN);
window.setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
        FrameLayout frame = new FrameLayout(this);
        frame.setId(viewId);
        setContentView(frame, new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT));
        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            fragment = new getactivity_171();
            FragmentTransaction ft = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
            ft.add(frame.getId(), fragment, MAIN_FRAGMENT_TAG).commit();
        } else {
            fragment = (PApplet) getFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(MAIN_FRAGMENT_TAG);
        }
    }
    @Override
    public void onBackPressed() {
        fragment.onBackPressed();
        super.onBackPressed();
    }
}

• getactivity_171.java

package processing.test.getactivity_171;

import processing.core.*; 
import processing.data.*; 
import processing.event.*; 
import processing.opengl.*; 

import android.app.Activity; 

import java.util.HashMap; 
import java.util.ArrayList; 
import java.io.File; 
import java.io.BufferedReader; 
import java.io.PrintWriter; 
import java.io.InputStream; 
import java.io.OutputStream; 
import java.io.IOException; 

public class getactivity_171 extends PApplet {

public void setup() {  
  Activity a = getActivity();  
}

public void draw() {

}
  public void settings() {  size(100, 100); }
  static public void main(String[] passedArgs) {
    String[] appletArgs = new String[] { "getactivity_171" };
    if (passedArgs != null) {
      PApplet.main(concat(appletArgs, passedArgs));
    } else {
      PApplet.main(appletArgs);
    }
  }
}

[omerjerk]

@Manindra29
In the above code, PApplet extends Fragment.

[omerjerk]

I'm wondering, even back when our sketch class used to extend Activity class, we never got warnings related to the Activity specific methods. Did we ?
If not, why is this happening only now ?

[codeanticode]

I cannot recall, as many changes happened in the syntax checker between we switched from Activity over to Fragment. I'm not even sure if the syntax checker was actually working at all before the Fragment switch.

In any case, the issue is happening, so we need to fix it :-)

[omerjerk]

Going to fix this issue once and for all now.
Working on it.

[omerjerk]

@Manindra29
Whenever I type the following code, I don't get the getActivity() related error.

Fragment d = new Fragment();
d.getActivity();

But when getActivity() is put inside the setup method, the error appears. Note that PApplet itself extends Fragment class.

void setup() {
    getActivity();
}

[omerjerk]

Wait, I think I've figured out the issue. :P

[omerjerk]

@benfry
The error, as far as I think, is that the PDE loads the java one core.jar and not the android one. That's why only methods specific to Android mode's PApplet get underlined.
So, I looked into ErrorCheckerService.java and did extensive debugging but couldn't find a place where the core.jar is explicitly being added to the compiler classpath.
Probably, it is inheriting core.jar from Java mode's classpath (not sure though).
At this point, one way is that we remove Java mode's dependency on the core.jar, but this will require a bulk of changes and testing. Other than this, I'm out of ideas.