It took a while for this release, compiler and gradle plugging is already on Maven and plugins will be available soon for download.

• What’s new
  • Added support for ‘App Extensions’: still can’t create one with RoboVM but allows to use existing one (PR255)
  • Framework target was improved that allows writing framework out of box without need of native coding (PR253)
  • regenerated embedded icu51.dat to fix crashes on several locales (PR227)
  • Enabling Maven debug options (#254, PR258)
  • ios11.3 (PR280) and ios11.4 (PR299) bindings
  • Resurrect junit support (PR281)
  • Gradle pluggin maintaince: support for debugger, dependency to build, clean cache etc (PR292)
• bugfixes
  • CBAdvertisementData cannot be instantiated](#224)
  • RoboVM doesn’t strips all simulator archs from dynamic framework which causes ITMS-90087 during submission (#228, PR229)
  • IB integrator generates wrong class name for empty @CustomClass, doesn’t support structs in IBInspectable (#230, PR231)
  • debugger: fixed debugger crash when resolving stack variables on arm64 (#239, PR240)
  • robovm doesn’t copies all swift libraries (#244, PR245)
  • InterfaceBuilderClassesPlugin complains on missing classes in xib but they are not (#246, PR247)
  • Debugger hangs when evaluating native objects that has no corresponding Java class loaded (PR256)
  • Debugger - broken step over and crashed when using lambda (PR257)
  • robovm + idea: wrong simulator version is launched than selected in run configuration (#262, PR263)
  • added flush as Unhandled exception will not be directed to NSLog otherwise (PR267)
  • Gradle: Unable to start 12.5 inch iPad simulator (#233, PR273)
  • dSYM generation heavily delayed on XCode 9.3 (#279, PR282)
  • IDEA: Install failure disables run button (#285, PR289)
  • Signing app ext and frameworks for Simulator: Apps won’t run on simulator if embedded frameworks are present (#286, PR289)
  • Fixed code sign auto signature/provisioning profile pickup (PR293)
  • Robovm compiler crashes with Kotlin modules when compiling for debug (#295, PR296)
  • fixed issue when breakpoint were not working in kotlin (PR297)
  • fix for “WARNING ITMS-90725: “SDK Version Issue (#302, PR301)
  • TLSv1.2 handshake fixed (#306, PR308)
• Useful tutorials
  • Tutorial: using app-extensions in RoboVM iOS application
  • Tutorial: writing Framework using improved framework target
  • Tutorial: Crash Reporters and java exceptions
  • Tutorial: Investigating silent crash of Release build (e.g. Port death watcher fired)
  • Tutorial: Interface Builder integration in RoboVM
  • Tutorial: using bro-gen to quick generate bindings

Keep working on local variable resolution for Kotlin and while having a progress there a bunch of WTF cases related to debug information that is included in Kotlin. Happily it is related to synthetic variable that are inserted by Kotlin, usually it goes into following cases:

1. variable defined to be in some slot within specific bytecode range but this slot is not populated;
2. same as first but in specified local variable slot there is leftover data and it is has not compatible type.

Here is bytecode that demonstrates issue 2:

History SSL Handshake error #306
Fix PR308

Initially I was suspecting missing of CA certificate for domain as in this issue but it turned out that RoboVM RT was not able to setup connection with TLSv1.2 only server.

Short update on debugger support for kotlin.
Recent fixes (#1, #2) unblocked debugger for kotlin but variable resolution is still broken. It still produces following error messages on synthetic kotlin code for lambdas and collections:

[ERROR] Unable to resolve variable $i$a$1$forEach in method test, class com.test.ViewController

This happen as this variable was declared in synthetic code and this code is out scope defined in debug information for this variable.
Code for variable resolution was pending to upgrade long time ago and best case would be to have variable information without dependency to debug information.
But not so fast: it is not always possible to do it straight away without assumptions and debug information. Integer types case is described bellow.

check PR301 for fix.
Kees van Dieren asked for solution about the issue he has with submitting app to apple store. Issue he had is following:

ITMS-90725: SDK Version Issue - In July 2018, iOS app updates submitted to the App Store will need to be built with the iOS ‘11.0’ SDK or later, included in Xcode [9.0] or later. Make sure to update Xcode for future app deliveries. After you’ve corrected the issues, you can use Xcode or Application Loader to upload a new binary to iTunes Connect.

After checking list of possible source of problems following poped up:

$ otool -l IosEsLauncher | grep -A 4 LC_VERSION_MIN_IPHONEOS
cmd LC_VERSION_MIN_IPHONEOS
cmdsize 16
version 8.0
sdk n/a
Load command 10

sdk n/a – come-on I had it with home made SDK on windows/linux and it should not happen on Mac but it there as well.

Root case

Application with RoboVM target crashes with EXC_BAD_ACCESS, investigation shows that this happens on null pointer exception (NPE) that enclosed in corresponding try-catch block and shall not break away? Already covered in Tutorial: Crash Reporters and java exceptions.
Root case is same – signals.
Solution is same – use Signals.installSignals.
Post bellow describes how to deal with it and introduces changes into framework template.

iOS 11.4 were generated using bro-gen. Check pr299 for details.
This update delivers following frameworks:

• ClassKit
• Metal Performance Shaders (available since iOS 9 but missing in RoboVM)

Related:
Tutorial: Using bro-gen to quick generate bindings

Previous debugger maintenance allowed to build kotlin code for debug and attach debugger for it. It was even possible to step-in into kotlin code. Absence of any kotlin experience didn’t allow to test it deeper. As it kept failing on simplest case, setting of breakpoint, with following message:

No executable code found at line XX in class YYYY

Root case of this – debug plugin and debugger considered JVM code as compiled from Java file and returned .java file extension everywhere.
The fix is bellow:

Debugger maintenance.
History Robovm compiler crashes with Kotlin modules when compiling for debug #295
Fix PR296

Fixed:

1. Crash when trying to debug application that contained Kotlin data modules (or any synthetics methods);
2. Crash when starting debugger for binary that contains classes with error (e.g. class not found for dependencies)

Details:

Today bug-fix/maintenance delivers following problem, following such obj-c code:

typedef enum LogLevelValues
{
    IS_LOG_NONE = -1,
    IS_LOG_INTERNAL = 0,
    IS_LOG_INFO = 1,
    IS_LOG_WARNING = 2,
    IS_LOG_ERROR = 3,
    IS_LOG_CRITICAL = 4,

} LogLevel;

- (void)sendLog:(NSString * )log level:(LogLevel)level tag:(LogTag)tag;

is being converted into following broken Java one: