Book Image

Android Native Development Kit Cookbook

By : Liu Feipeng
Book Image

Android Native Development Kit Cookbook

By: Liu Feipeng

Overview of this book

Building Android applications would usually mean that you spend all of your time working in Java. There are however times when this is not the most efficient or best method for the application being built. This is where Android NDK comes in. Android NDK allows the developer to write in Native C/C++, giving you the power to reuse code and libraries and also, in most cases, increase the speed and efficiency of your application.The "Android Native Development Kit Cookbook" will help you understand the development, building, and debugging of your native Android applications. We will discover and learn JNI programming and essential NDK APIs such as OpenGL ES, and the native application API. We will then explore the process of porting existing libraries and software to NDK. By the end of this book you will be able to build your own apps in NDK apps."Android Native Development Kit Cookbook" begins with basic recipes that will help you in the building and debugging of native apps, and JNI programming. The recipes cover various topics of application development with Android NDK such as OpenGL programming and Multimedia programming. We will begin with a simple recipe, Hello NDK, before moving on to cover advanced topics with recipes on OpenGL ES that focus on 2D and 3D graphics, as well as recipes that discuss working with NDK and external APIs. If you are looking for ways to make your application available in Android and take measures to boost your application's performance, then this Cookbook is for you.

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Android Native Development Kit Cookbook
Liu Feipeng
Mar, 2013 | 346 pages
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Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Android Native Development Kit Cookbook
Android Native Development Kit Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Hello NDK
Hello NDK
Introduction
Setting up an Android NDK development environment in Windows
Setting up an Android NDK development environment in Ubuntu Linux
Setting up an Android NDK development environment in Mac OS
Updating Android NDK
Writing a Hello NDK program
2
Java Native Interface
Java Native Interface
Introduction
Loading native libraries and registering native methods
Passing parameters and receiving returns in primitive types
Manipulating strings in JNI
Managing references in JNI
Manipulating classes in JNI
Manipulating objects in JNI
Manipulating arrays in JNI
Accessing Java static and instance fields in the native code
Calling static and instance methods from the native code
Caching jfieldID, jmethodID, and referencing data to improve performance
Checking errors and handling exceptions in JNI
Integrating assembly code in JNI
3
Build and Debug NDK Applications
Build and Debug NDK Applications
Introduction
Building an Android NDK application at the command line
Building an Android NDK application in Eclipse
Building an Android NDK application for different ABIs
Building Android NDK applications for different CPU features
Debugging an Android NDK application with logging messages
Debugging an Android NDK application with CheckJNI
Debugging an Android NDK application with NDK GDB
Debugging an Android NDK application with CGDB
Debugging an Android NDK application in Eclipse
4
Android NDK OpenGL ES API
Android NDK OpenGL ES API
Introduction
Drawing 2D Graphics and applying transforms with the OpenGL ES 1.x API
Drawing 3D graphics and lighting up the scene with the OpenGL ES 1.x API
Mapping texture to 3D objects with the OpenGL ES 1.x API
Drawing 3D graphics with the OpenGL ES 2.0 API
Displaying graphics with EGL
5
Android Native Application API
Android Native Application API
Introduction
Creating a native activity with the native_activity.h interface
Creating a native activity with the Android native app glue
Managing native windows at Android NDK
Detecting and handling input events at Android NDK
Accessing sensors at Android NDK
Managing assets at Android NDK
6
Android NDK Multithreading
Android NDK Multithreading
Introduction
Creating and terminating native threads at Android NDK
Synchronizing native threads with mutex at Android NDK
Synchronizing native threads with conditional variables at Android NDK
Synchronizing native threads with reader/writer locks at Android NDK
Synchronizing native threads with semaphore at Android NDK
Scheduling native threads at Android NDK
Managing data for native threads at Android NDK
7
Other Android NDK API
Other Android NDK API
Introduction
Programming with the jnigraphics library in Android NDK
Programming with the dynamic linker library in Android NDK
Programming with the zlib compression library in Android NDK
Programming audio with the OpenSL ES audio library in Android NDK
Programming with the OpenMAX AL multimedia library in Android NDK
8
Porting and Using the Existing Libraries with Android NDK
Porting and Using the Existing Libraries with Android NDK
Introduction
Porting a library as a shared library module with the Android NDK build system
Porting a library as a static library module with the Android NDK build system
Porting a library with its existing build system using the Android NDK toolchain
Using a library as a prebuilt library
Using a library in multiple projects with import-module
Porting a library that requires RTTI, exception, and STL support
9
Porting an Existing Application to Android with NDK
Porting an Existing Application to Android with NDK
Introduction
Porting a command-line executable to Android with an NDK build system
Porting a command-line executable to Android with an NDK standalone compiler
Adding GUI to a ported Android app
Using background threads at porting
Index
Index

Updating Android NDK

When there is a new release of NDK, we may want to update NDK in order to take advantage of the new features or bug fixes with the new release. This recipe talks about how to update Android NDK in Windows, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OS.

Getting ready

Please read the previous recipes in this chapter, depending on the platform of your choice.

How to do it…

In Windows, follow these instructions to update Android NDK:

  1. Go to http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html to download the latest version of Android NDK. Unzip the downloaded file.

  2. Open Cygwin.bat under the cygwin root directory. The content should be similar to the following code snippet, if you have previously configured NDK on the system:

    @echo off
set IS_UNIX=
set JAVA_HOME=<JDK path>
set PATH=<SDK path>\tools;<NDK path>
set ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=/cygdrive/<NDK path>
C:
chdir C:\cygwin\bin
bash --login -i

  3. Update <NDK path> from the old NDK path to the newly downloaded and decompressed location.

In Ubuntu Linux, follow these instructions to update Android NDK:

  1. Download the latest version of Android NDK from http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html, then extract the downloaded file.

  2. If we have followed the Setting up an Android NDK development environment in Ubuntu Linux recipe, the following content should appear at the end of ~/.bashrc:

    export ANDROID_SDK=<path to Android SDK directory>
export ANDROID_NDK=<path to Android NDK directory>
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK

  3. Update the ANDROID_NDK path to the newly downloaded and extracted Android NDK folder.

In Mac OS, the steps are almost identical to Ubuntu Linux, except that we need to append the path to ~/.profile instead of ~/.bashrc.

How it works…

NDK installation is completed by simply downloading and extracting the NDK file, and configuring the path properly. Therefore, updating NDK is as simple as updating the configured path to the new NDK folder.

There's more…

Sometimes, updating NDK requires updating SDK first. Since this book focuses on Android NDK, explaining how to update SDK is beyond the scope of this book. You can refer to the Android developer website at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html, for details on how to do it.

At times, we may feel the need to use an old version of NDK to build certain applications because of compatibility issues. Therefore, it may be useful to keep multiple versions of Android NDK and switch between them by changing the path or simply using the full path to refer to a specific version of NDK.

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