xz_utils: fix Android build

[vbieleny]

Summary

Changes to recipe: xz_utils/5.8.1

Motivation

This is a fix for cross building from Windows to Android. At the moment, I encountered two issues. One issue was that msys2 was not used when building for Android with Autotools with xz_utils version 5.8.1. But even after fixing that, the Autotools failed while building. I fixed it by using CMake when building for Android on Windows since I don't have much experience with Autotools.

This PR fixes cross-compilation from Windows to Android. I encountered two issues during the process. The first was that MSYS2 wasn’t being used when building for Android with Autotools (xz_utils 5.8.1). After resolving that, the Autotools build still failed. Since I don’t have much experience with Autotools, I switched to using CMake for the Windows-to-Android build, which resolved the remaining issues.

Details

Initially, I had to update the following condition:

if self._settings_build.os == "Windows" and not self._use_msbuild and Version(self.version) < "5.8.1":

to:

if self._settings_build.os == "Windows" and not self._use_msbuild and not self._use_cmake:

Without this change, the build wouldn’t use msys2 at all and failed with the following error:

configure_error.txt

However, even after resolving that, the Autotools build still failed because it attempted to include windows.h while targeting Android. Relevant logs:

autotools_android_error.txt

Switching to CMake for Windows-to-Android builds resolves the issue, and the build completes successfully:

cmake_android_build.txt

---

• Read the contributing guidelines
• Checked that this PR is not a duplicate: list of PRs by recipe
• If this is a bug fix, please link related issue or provide bug details
• Tested locally with at least one configuration using a recent version of Conan

---

Add a 👍 reaction to pull requests you find important to help the team prioritize, thanks!

[uilianries]

@vbieleny Hello! Nice investigation over xz_utils to find Android support on Windows 😄

We had a similar case for libsocketcan where msys did not find the correct triplet, causing your mentioned error to find Windows header. As a solution, you can use the Conan configuration tools.gnu:host_triplet=aarch64-linux-android to enforce the correct triplet.

Using this approach, you can simplify your PR just to:

diff --git a/recipes/xz_utils/all/conanfile.py b/recipes/xz_utils/all/conanfile.py
index 2b77d6957..ae2dc5bb2 100644
--- a/recipes/xz_utils/all/conanfile.py
+++ b/recipes/xz_utils/all/conanfile.py
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ class XZUtilsConan(ConanFile):
         basic_layout(self, src_folder="src")

     def build_requirements(self):
-        if self._settings_build.os == "Windows" and not self._use_msbuild and Version(self.version) < "5.8.1":
+        if self._settings_build.os == "Windows" and not self._use_msbuild and (Version(self.version) < "5.8.1" or self.settings.os == "Android"):
             self.win_bash = True
             if not self.conf.get("tools.microsoft.bash:path", check_type=str):
                 self.tool_requires("msys2/cci.latest")

Using this approach I can build both versions 5.8.1 and 5.2.4 on Windows for Android using autotools. Please check my full build logs:

• xz_utils-5.8.1-windows-cross-android-conan.log
• xz_utils-5.2.4-windows-cross-android-conan.log

Regards!

[vbieleny]

@uilianries Hi! Thanks for looking into this. I tried your solution and it worked for me as well. I’ll go ahead and make the necessary edits so it can be merged.

That said, it still feels like a workaround since it doesn’t work out of the box. Is this something that could be addressed more directly, for example, by somehow overriding the GNU host triplet in the android-ndk recipe, or even within Conan itself?

Have a nice weekend!