external_update_binary

Provides the applypatch/updater/edify stack — the code that builds the updater binary embedded as update-binary inside a non-A/B OTA zip, and interpreted by recovery's install/install.cpp (SetUpNonAbUpdateCommands()) at install time.

Why this repo exists

Google deleted this source from AOSP outright in commit c7ebad5f ("rm -rf non-AB code", 2024-04-05, Bug 324360816) — confirmed present in the android-14 tag, absent from android-16.0.0_r4. The runtime side survived (install/install.cpp in stock bootable/recovery still unconditionally extracts and executes update-binary from an OTA zip) and the build-side packaging survived too (ota_from_target_files.py still has GenerateNonAbOtaPackage/--binary) — only the source that builds the updater executable itself was removed. This repo restores just that piece, sourced from TeamWin's android_bootable_recovery (android-14.1 branch), the only living copy found.

Kept as its own repo rather than folded into a recovery fork so it's buildable independent of whichever recovery UI PawletOS ends up using (stock AOSP UI or a TWRP-derived one) — see PawletOS/NOTES-ota-recovery-ab.md in the main workspace for the full investigation.

Layout

• applypatch/ — binary patch application (imgpatch, bspatch), plus the standalone applypatch/imgdiff tools. Self-contained Soong module, no changes made against TeamWin's source.
• updater/ — the updater executable itself (updater/Android.mk, LOCAL_MODULE := updater) and its supporting static libs (libupdater_core, libupdater_device, libupdater_host). Uses classic Android.mk/BUILD_EXECUTABLE — verified still supported in raspberry-vanilla's android-16.0 build/make fork (core/executable.mk present, LOCAL_FORCE_STATIC_EXECUTABLE handling present).
• edify/ — the scripting language updater-script is written in (libedify: lexer/parser/expression evaluator).

What was intentionally left out

• install/ZipUtil.cpp, install/get_args.cpp, install/set_metadata.cpp — these existed in TeamWin's tree but are wired only into their modified install.cpp (bootable/recovery's top-level Android.bp), which PawletOS is not adopting (stock install.cpp is being kept as-is). Confirmed twrpinstall (a separate standalone module, not part of this repo) ships its own independent copies of ZipUtil/get_args, so nothing depends on the ones that used to live here. Left out rather than carried along as dead weight.
• uncrypt/Android.mk — uncrypt still exists, unmodified, in stock bootable/recovery. Nothing to restore there.

Compatibility notes (android-16.0.0_r4, raspberry-vanilla build)

• Adapted updater/Android.bp and edify/Android.bp to declare their own license {} module instead of referencing bootable/recovery's internal bootable_recovery_license name — keeps this repo buildable without a hard coupling to bootable/recovery's own license plumbing. applypatch/ already declared its own license module upstream, left as-is.
• All static_libs/shared_libs dependencies referenced (libbootloader_message, libotautil, libavb, liblp, libdm, libfec/libfec_rs, libselinux, libsparse, libsquashfs_utils, libbrotli, libbz, libziparchive, libbase, libcrypto_utils, libbsdiff, libdivsufsort/libdivsufsort64) are long-stable AOSP library names from system//external/, not modified by PawletOS or raspberry-vanilla — not individually re-verified against the android-16.0 tag, flagged here in case a build turns one of these up as missing.
• Not yet build-tested end to end (no local AOSP build environment available in this workspace) — the checks above were done by reading source and grepping actual cloned trees, not by compiling.

License

Apache License 2.0 (see NOTICE), consistent with the upstream AOSP/TeamWin source this was derived from.