How to debug external native library on Windows from Android Studio? - android

I am trying to debug (from Windows) a native library (built with NDK v13b) that is shipped inside an Android application. The library is built outside of Android Studio, it does not use Gradle (CMake is used).
My library is built with debugging; the debug configuration in Studio is Hybrid, and I give the appropriate symbol directories. To "import" my library, I simply copy the .so and the .jar files inside my project directory in the appropriate locations (libs for the JAR, jniLibs for the SO).
When the library is built on a separate machine (Linux), I can do step-by-step without any problem, as long as I remap source locations (ie. using settings set target.source-map).
However, when I build the library on my Windows system, step-by-step does not work anymore.
I noticed a difference of behavior depending when I debug using the "built-from-Linux" or the "built-from-Windows" library. When debugging using the from-Linux one, LLDB command image list indicates that the library path is in the initial build directory. However, when debugging the from-Windows one, It is in C:\Users\foo\.lldb\module_cache\remote-android\.cache.... And this version of the library seems to be stripped.
Why this difference of behavior?
How can I either 1. use a pristine copy of my library in the module cache, or 2. directly use the build library?
Thanks,

Related

Sdk location in AOSP

Note - I am relatively new to Android and AOSP...
Where can I find the Android SDK in the AOSP? As we know, we build apk files in the android studio using the separately installed SDK. But for some reason, I wish to use the SDK in the AOSP if it is available. I see the source code of SDK in the AOSP; do we need to build it?
Why/How I have arrived at the above question:
I had created an .apk in the AOSP which had JNI files and dependency on some existing Broadcom libs (so). It is a system app. What I noticed is the .apk package does not contain the JNI libs but rather is copied to /system/lib folder separately. Hence I had a doubt how the .apk upgrade will work? Is it possible?
I assumed the .apk upgrade won't work that way and the .apk should be packaged including the JNI libs. Hence I planned to build the .apk in the studio and use the .apk as prebuilt and just sign it in the AOSP (we have the keys). Then I also wanted to allow the developers to build the .apk in AOSP itself by running the Gradle in the command line. I did so by adding the command to the Android.mk. But the point here is, it is still using the SDK installed in /home//Android/Sdk. But there may be build machines which may not have the SDK installed. So I am putting this question - Do we (where?) have the SDK in AOSP? Can I use that instead?
I tried to explain the problem.. in case it's not clear please let me know... Will try to give more details...
OTA update will work. Update with Package Manager - won't. This is normal for system apps with native libraries.
In AOSP applications are built differently depending on their location in build tree. Apps placed in ~/packages/apps and ~/device/some_vendor are system apps and they are handled differently by the system. One of differences is that during build process they are stripped of their native libraries and those libraries are simply copied to the /system/ partition.
Including pre-built apk is a good solution.
Yes you can build sdk yourself from sources. Yes, it's there. But I don't understand why you need that. Are there any changes to the API?
There are other options. For example, you can mangle your build scripts. Say, you can add a global FLAG that would disable lib stripping for system apps.

Can I build a shared library for Android (*.so) in Embarcadero C++Builder?

I am trying to create a shared library, using Embarcadero's C++Builder and RAD Studio 10.2. I created a C++Builder "Dynamic Linked Library" project. When I specify the target platforms to build for, the only options are 32-bit Windows, 64-bit Windows, and OS X. I need to be able to build the library for the Android (Linux) platform as well. How can I accomplish this?
At this time, RADStudio (including Delphi and C++Builder) does not support the creation of custom .so libraries for Android (only consuming them). Per the documentation, .so files can be created for Linux (and .dylib files for OSX/iOS) by creating a Delphi-style Package instead of a Dynamic-Link Library.
RADStudio-created Android apps are compiled as .so files (because they are based on the NDK, so the real app is just a small Java stub class that loads and executes the .so at runtime), but that is the extent of Embarcadero's .so generation on Android. Compiling custom .so libraries for Android is simply not supported yet.

Creating Android Library using QT

I tried searching for a solution but the only answers i found were the other way around (using the AAR inside QT).
I am developing an android app inside QT creator.
All is working fine. Now i need to make the core of this app as a library that can be distributed to android developer to be used in their code (like an AAR).
Is that possible to be done?
If so, how to do it and how to import it in other development tools (android studio/ eclipse ...)?
The easiest way is to compile your library using QtCreator and then send people the generated .so file with the header files. Then people can link with the .so file and use the header files to call the functions or instantiate the classes packaged in it.
Check this link to see how to build a library with QtCreator:
https://wiki.qt.io/How_to_create_a_library_with_Qt_and_use_it_in_an_application
Note that you'll need to compile both armv7 and x86 targets and send both .so files if those two targets are needed.

How can I (Should I?) modify the Eclipse build process to build a custom android build?

I am working on a Java application that will run on an embedded system - a custom android build or modified AOSP. It is built on a linux server.
I would love to use an IDE like Eclipse with all its goodies like code completion, source code checking etc. but it seems very complicated. I looked at Puri's blog here
for one, the build process of our custom android uses Android.mk makefiles.
How can I (Should I?) modify the Eclipse build process to build the custom android build?
You can use either eclipse or studio to maintain a custom, pre-installed application.
In either case, you will not use the IDE to build the actual application image. That will be built as part of the make from the root of the AOSP install(1)
You can, however, create a project whose root is the directory in either /device or /package that contains your app.
Once you've done that, read the Android.mk file to find dependencies. Add them to the project as you would for any other project, for your chosen IDE.
If you go for eclipse, I suggest that you put the build directory somewhere in /out, or outside the AOSP directory altogether. If the root make file finds it, it can be a problem.
When you need to test your app on a device or an emulator, use mm to build only your app.
Better yet, if possible, do most of the development for your app as you would any stand-alone app, so that you can easily install and test it. Only put it in the AOSP directory as part of the release process.
Note, you can use either eclipse or studio to kick off that system
build. In eclipse, use External Tools. Studio provides similar
capabilities

Install app on genymotion device ,meet:“INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE”

When I install my app on a genymotion simulater device,it can not be installed well,on console I got "INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE"
I trid another app,it installed fine.I do not know why.
The application (certainly a game) must be ARM only.
Genymotion is a x86 platform, so compile the application to target x86.
You may be able to install ARM support manually :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2528952
If you are using IntelliJ it may be related to the project's default configuration. IntelliJ will assume, unless otherwise specified, that Native libraries will be stored in the Libs folder. This is usually where developer store their JAR libraries. IntelliJ build process will package up the JAR file into the Native file folder in the APK.
If you experiencing this problem, you can find a good How-to:
INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE Intellj
This helped to resolve the issue I had.
You might want to check out my answer here:
INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE on device using intellij
I know it's written for IntelliJ, but you could be running into a similar issue with Eclipse where it thinks that some normal Java files or jar libraries are native code and including it in the compiled APK. A quick way to find out is to open up the final APK (it's just a jar file, so most utilities should be able to decompress it) and make sure that the only things you see are META-INF, res, AndroidManifest.xml, classes.dex, and resources.arsc. It's possible that there are other valid files in a normal Java Android application, but in general if you see anything else in there, particularly a libs folder, it's probably the result of the compilation process thinking that those other things are native libraries (compiled C/C++ code using the JNI).
If this is the case, you'll need to configure Eclipse to not interpret the Java libraries you're using as native code. Now, I don't personally use Eclipse so I don't know where the proper settings would be, but based off of this answer, it looks like Eclipse automatically assumes that the libs folder in the root of your project contains native libraries. The easiest solution may be to move any Java libraries you are using into a different folder (such as libraries).
http://blog.iteedee.com/2014/02/android-install_failed_cpu_abi_incompatible-intellj/
The INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE error is generated when you attempt to install an android application on a device with an unsupported CPU architecture. This error is usually related to the native libraries that are not packaged up for the device’s CPU architecture (ie: x86, ARMv6, ARMv7, etc).
Now, if you have an application that doesn’t use any native libraries or *.so file you might be scratching your head on this one. If you use IntelliJ IDEA IDE for your android development it might be packaging all of your related .JAR file in to the Native Library file location in your APK.
The cause of the same problem was different in my case.
I had added some dependency jars in /libs directory of my Android app project. One of these jars had exported library in jar format; i.e. a jar within a jar file. I've noticed that the apk created using jars with such structure are incompatible with x86 based devices (don't know why).

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