ICU is available as library for some systems, but it is quite large (libicudata for instance is more than 23MB alone). It is possible to reduce the size considerably reading this, and rebuilding.
ICU is perfectly portable on Linux, MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux Embedded etc... The process of cross-building is very simple, but still it took me a couple of hours to build for Linux, MacOS, iOS device and simulator and Android. So, I found some scripts around and fixed those bit (maybe the originals were a little outdated). I therefore write here a couple of notes on how to do it quickly (tested on 51.1).
Download the sources
I commonly download the sources from the repo directly:export MY_DIR=some building directory
cd $MY_DIR
svn export http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/tags/release-51-2 icu-51.2
You might want now to modify uconfig.h or data to avoid including data which is useless for your application: http://userguide.icu-project.org/icudata.
Build for Android
Cross-building ICU requires to build it first for the system where the cross-build is run, then for the target system. So, if we're using Linux when building for Android, let's first build ICU for Linux:cd $MY_DIR
mkdir build_icu_linux
cd build_icu_linux
and use this script to build from there (change the variables and build options according to your needs):
export ICU_SOURCES=$MY_DIR/icu-51.2
export CPPFLAGS="-O3 -fno-short-wchar -DU_USING_ICU_NAMESPACE=1 -fno-short-enums \
-DU_HAVE_NL_LANGINFO_CODESET=0 -D__STDC_INT64__ -DU_TIMEZONE=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_LEGACY_CONVERSION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_BREAK_ITERATION=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_COLLATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_TRANSLITERATION=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS=1"
sh $ICU_SOURCES/source/runConfigureICU Linux --prefix=$PWD/icu_build --enable-extras=no \
--enable-strict=no -enable-static --enable-shared=no --enable-tests=no \
--enable-samples=no --enable-dyload=no
make -j4
make install
Now you can build for Android:
cd $MY_DIR
mkdir build_icu_android
cd build_icu_android
and use this script:
export ICU_SOURCES=$MY_DIR/icu-51.2
export ANDROIDVER=8
export AR=/usr/bin/ar
export BASE=$MY_DIR
export HOST_ICU=$BASE/build_icu_android
export ICU_CROSS_BUILD=$BASE/build_icu_linux
export NDK_STANDARD_ROOT=your toolchain root
export CPPFLAGS="-I$NDK_STANDARD_ROOT/sysroot/usr/include/ \
-O3 -fno-short-wchar -DU_USING_ICU_NAMESPACE=1 -fno-short-enums \
-DU_HAVE_NL_LANGINFO_CODESET=0 -D__STDC_INT64__ -DU_TIMEZONE=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_LEGACY_CONVERSION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_BREAK_ITERATION=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_COLLATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_TRANSLITERATION=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS=1"
export LDFLAGS="-lc -lstdc++ -Wl,-rpath-link=$NDK_STANDARD_ROOT/sysroot/usr/lib/"
export PATH=$PATH:$NDK_STANDARD_ROOT/bin
$ICU_SOURCES/source/configure --with-cross-build=$ICU_CROSS_BUILD \
--enable-extras=no --enable-strict=no -enable-static --enable-shared=no \
--enable-tests=no --enable-samples=no --enable-dyload=no \
--host=arm-linux-androideabi --prefix=$PWD/icu_build
make -j4
make install
In the icu_build directory you should have all you need to build your new application.
Note that I didn't use the NDK here, but the standard toolchain that results from the make-standalone-toolchain.sh script in the NDK.
Also note that part of ICU is already in /system/lib in some Android devices but I don't think there is any guarantee that it will be in every device (not part of the standard Android interface) and don't know exactly what is included inside that build.
Building for iOS
The same approach can be applied to cross-build for iOS. First, I built for MacOS in this case, and then for iOS device and simulator.cd $MY_DIR
mkdir build_icu_mac
cd build_icu_mac
The script is similar to the Linux one:
ICUSRC_PATH=$MY_DIR/icu-51.2
export CPPFLAGS="-O3 -DU_USING_ICU_NAMESPACE=1 -fno-short-enums \
-DU_HAVE_NL_LANGINFO_CODESET=0 -D__STDC_INT64__ -DU_TIMEZONE=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_LEGACY_CONVERSION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_BREAK_ITERATION=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_COLLATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_TRANSLITERATION=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS=1"
sh $ICUSRC_PATH/source/runConfigureICU MacOSX --prefix=$PWD/icu_build --enable-extras=no \
--enable-strict=no -enable-static --enable-shared=no --enable-tests=no \
--enable-samples=no --enable-dyload=no
make -j4
make install
Then I built for the iOS simulator in:
cd $MY_DIR
mkdir build_icu_simulator
cd build_icu_simulator
with this script:
DEVROOT=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer
SDKROOT=$DEVROOT/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator6.1.sdk
SYSROOT=$SDKROOT
ICU_SOURCES=$MY_DIR/icu-51.2
ICU_FLAGS="-I$ICU_PATH/source/common/ -I$ICU_PATH/source/tools/tzcode/ -O3 \
-DU_USING_ICU_NAMESPACE=1 -fno-short-enums -DU_HAVE_NL_LANGINFO_CODESET=0 \
-D__STDC_INT64__ -DU_TIMEZONE=0 -DUCONFIG_NO_LEGACY_CONVERSION=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_BREAK_ITERATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_COLLATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_TRANSLITERATION=0 -DUCONFIG_NO_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS=1"
export CPPFLAGS="-I$SDKROOT/usr/include/ -I$SDKROOT/usr/include/ -I./include/ \
-miphoneos-version-min=2.2 $ICU_FLAGS -pipe -arch i386 -no-cpp-precomp \
-isysroot $SDKROOT"
export LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -L$SDKROOT/usr/lib/ -isysroot $SDKROOT \
-Wl,-dead_strip -miphoneos-version-min=2.0"
sh $ICU_PATH/source/configure --host=i686-apple-darwin11 --enable-static --disable-shared \
-with-cross-build=/Users/luca/tmp/icu_build_mac --prefix=$PWD/icu_build
make -j4
make install
It works similarly for the arm device itself:
cd $MY_DIR
mkdir build_icu_device
cd build_icu_device
and this is the script to build:
DEVROOT=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer
SDKROOT=$DEVROOT/SDKs/iPhoneOS6.1.sdk
SYSROOT=$SDKROOT
ICU_PATH=$MY_DIR/icu-51.2
ICU_FLAGS="-I$ICU_PATH/source/common/ -I$ICU_PATH/source/tools/tzcode/ -O3 \
-fno-short-wchar -DU_USING_ICU_NAMESPACE=1 -fno-short-enums \
-DU_HAVE_NL_LANGINFO_CODESET=0 -D__STDC_INT64__ -DU_TIMEZONE=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_LEGACY_CONVERSION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_BREAK_ITERATION=1 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_COLLATION=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING=1 -DUCONFIG_NO_TRANSLITERATION=0 \
-DUCONFIG_NO_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS=1"
export CPPFLAGS="-I$SDKROOT/usr/include/ -I$SDKROOT/usr/include/ -I./include/ \
-miphoneos-version-min=2.2 $ICU_FLAGS -pipe -no-cpp-precomp -isysroot $SDKROOT"
export CC="$DEVROOT/usr/llvm-gcc-4.2/bin/arm-apple-darwin10-llvm-gcc-4.2"
export CXX="$DEVROOT/usr/llvm-gcc-4.2/bin/arm-apple-darwin10-llvm-g++-4.2"
export LDFLAGS="-L$SDKROOT/usr/lib/ -isysroot $SDKROOT -Wl,-dead_strip \
-miphoneos-version-min=2.0"
sh $ICU_PATH/source/configure --host=arm-apple-darwin --enable-static \
--disable-shared -with-cross-build=$MY_DIR/icu_build_mac --prefix=$PWD/icu_build
make -j4
make install
Post a comment if you find something wrong!
Of course the same approach might work similarly for other embedded devices with a proper toolchain :-)
Not too difficult, but still might speed up your work! ;-)