NDK Development

This is a mirror of official Google NDK documentation.

This document describes how one can modify the NDK and generate
new experimental release packages for it.

I. Getting the sources:
=======================

The sources live under the "ndk" and "development/ndk" directories in
the Android source tree:

  - "ndk" contains the main build scripts and documentation
  - "development/ndk" contains platform-specific headers and samples

If you have downloaded the full Android source tree through the "repo"
tool, you can start directly there. Otherwise, you can just get these
two repositories with the following:

  mkdir workdir
  cd workdir
  git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/ndk.git ndk
  git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development.git development
  export NDK=`pwd`/ndk


II. Building the platforms tree:
================================

You need to do that once if you want to use the content of $NDK to build
samples, tests or anything else:

  $NDK/build/tools/build-platforms.sh

What the script does is populate the $NDK/platforms and $NDK/samples
directories from the content of development/ndk.

What is under development/ndk is segregated by API level. This makes it
easier to add a new platform to the tree, but is not well-suited to building
stuff. The build-platforms.sh script will gather all files appropriately
and place the result inside $NDK/platforms and $NDK/samples.

Note: These directories are listed by $NDK/.gitignore, so they won't appear
      on your git status. You can remove them if you want by running:

        $NDK/build/tools/dev-cleanup.sh

      which also removes all intermediate files and directories from $NDK.


III. Prebuilt binaries:
=======================

The NDK requires several prebuilt binary executables to work properly, these
include the following:

  - toolchain binaries for the cross-compiler and associated tools
  - gdbserver binaries required for native debugging

These are not provided in the NDK's git repositories. However, there are
several ways to get them:

  1/ From a previous NDK release package:

      By far the easiest thing to do is to copy the binaries from a previous
      NDK installation. You can do that with a command like the following one:

            cp -r $PREVIOUS_NDK/toolchains/* $NDK/toolchains/

      NOTE: The binaries are listed in $NDK/.gitignore and will not appear
            in your git status.


  2/ Download and rebuild directly from the internet:

      IMPORTANT: This is *very* long.

      The NDK comes with several scripts that can be used to rebuild the
      binaries from scratch, after downloading their sources from
      android.googlesource.com.

      There are several ways to do that, the most naive one, which will
      always work but will be *very* long (expect a few hours on a typical
      dual-core machine) is to do the following:

        $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh

      This will perform all the steps required to rebuild the binaries,
      which include:

        - downloading the sources from android.googlesource.com
        - patching them with appropriate changes, if needed
        - rebuilding everything from scratch
        - copying the generated binaries to the proper location under $NDK

      You will need about 30G of free space in your /tmp directory to be
      able to do that, and *plenty* of free time.

      IMPORTANT: If you plan to generate NDK release packages, even
      experimental ones, we strongly suggest you to use the individual
      steps described in 3/ below.

      IMPORTANT:
          Since NDK r5, Windows binaries can be built on Linux by using the
          --mingw option, which requires that you have the "mingw32" package
          installed on your system. For example:

              $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh --mingw

          We do not officially support building these binaries directly on
          Windows (either through Cygwin or MSys) anymore, due to the vast
          number of problems these environments create when trying to do so.



  3/ Download, rebuild, package, install in separate steps:

      If you plan to generate your own NDK release packages, it is better
      to rebuild your binaries using separate steps, as in:

         - Download the sources from the Internet, patch them, then
           package the result in a simple tarball.

         - For every target system (linux-x86, darwin-x86 and windows),
           rebuild the binaries from the same source tarball.

         - Package and collect all prebuilt binaries into a single
           directory that will be used when packaging NDK releases.

      Here are more details on how to do that:

      3.a/ Download + patching + packaging sources:

        Use the following command to download, patch and package the
        sources:

           $NDK/build/tools/download-toolchain-sources.sh --package

        This will create a large tarball containing all sources ready to be
        used by the following step. The generated file path will be dumped at
        the script when it completes its operation and should be something
        like:

          /tmp/android-ndk-toolchain-<date>.tar.bz2

        Note that if you don't use the --package option, you will need to
        provide the name of a directory where the patched sources will be
        copied instead, as in:

            $NDK/build/tools/download-toolchain-sources.sh <target-src-dir>


       3.b/ Build the binaries:

        Use the following command to rebuild the binaries from the source
        tarball that was created in the previous section with the --package
        option:

            $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh --toolchain-pkg=<file>

        Where <file> points to the package generated by the
        download-toolchain-sources.sh script.

        In the case where you downloaded the sources to a directory instead,
        use the --toolchain-src-dir option instead, as with:

            $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh --toolchain-src-dir=<path>

        This will rebuild all the prebuilt binaries for your host platforms
        and place them in a directory named:

             /tmp/ndk-prebuilt/prebuilt-<date>/

        These binary packages include the following:

            - host-specific toolchain binaries. e.g.
                arm-eabi-4.4.0-linux-x86.tar.bz2

            - toolchain specific device binaries, e.g.
                arm-eabi-4.4.0-gdbserver.tar.bz2

        IMPORTANT:
            To generate Windows binaries on Windows, install the "mingw32"
            package on your system, then use the --mingw option, as in:

               $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh --mingw --toolchain-pkg=<file>

            Note that device-specific binaries (e.g. gdbserver) cannot be
            rebuilt with this option.

       3.c/ Copy the binaries to your NDK tree:

        Simply go to your NDK tree, and unpack the binary tarballs in place,
        for example:

            cd $NDK
            tar xjf <path>/*.tar.bz2

        Where <path> is a directory containing all the tarballs (e.g. it
        could be simply /tmp/ndk-prebuilt/prebuilt-<date>)

        This will put the corresponding files at the correct location.


       3.c/

      It is a good idea to save the generated toolchain binaries into
      an archive. To do that, use the --package option, as in:

        $NDK/build/tools/rebuild-all-prebuilt.sh --package

      This will generate a package file containing all the prebuilts, that
      can be unpacked directly into your $NDK directory. The package name is
      printed at the end, e.g."android-ndk-prebuild-<date>-<system>.tar.bz2".

      Where <date> is the current date, and <system> is your system name.
      Then, to unpack:

        cd $NDK                               k
        tar xjf /tmp/android-ndk-prebuilt-<date>-<system>.tar.bz2


      The generated package can easily be shared with other people.


IV. Generate new package releases:
==================================

You can generate new experimental NDK release packages once you're satisfied
with your changes, in order to share them with other people. There are two
ways to do that:

  1/ Using the 'make-release.sh' script:

    The simplest, and also the slowest way, to generate a new NDK release
    is to invoke this script, with:

        $NDK/build/tools/make-release.sh

    NOTE: THIS WILL BE VERY VERY LONG. The script will do all the steps
          described in section III *from* scratch, and this can take several
          hours on a dual-core machine.

    You should only use it in case of desperation, or if you don't want
    to deal with all the details exposed in section III or below.


  1/ Using a previous NDK release package:

    This is the second simplest way to generate a new package, and it will
    be extremely quick because it will pick the prebuilt binaries directly
    from the previous package.

    Do the following:

        cd $NDK
        build/tools/package-release.sh --prebuilt-ndk=<file>

    Where <file> points to a previous NDK package (i.e. archive file).

    NOTE: This method can only be used to generate a single release package
          for the current host system.

  2/ Using prebuilt tarballs:

    If you have generated prebuilt binary tarballs with the steps described
    in section III.3 above, you can use these to generate release packages
    as well.

    Assuming that you have collected prebuilt tarballs for all three supported
    host systems (i.e. linux-x86, darwin-x86 and windows) under a directory,
    do the following:

        cd $NDK
        build/tools/package-release.sh --prebuilt-dir=<path>

    The generated NDK package release will have a name that looks like:

        /tmp/ndk-release/android-ndk-<release>-<system>.zip

    Where <release> is by default the current date in ISO format
    (e.g. 20100915), and <system> corresponds to the host system where the
    NDK release is supposed to run.

    The script 'package-release.sh' provides a few additional options:

        --release=<name>       Change the name of the release

        --systems=<list>       Change the list of host systems to package for

        --platforms=<list>     List of API levels to package in the NDK

        --out-dir=<path>       Specify a different output directory for the
                               final packages (instead of /tmp/ndk-release)

    Use --help to list them all.