Develop Reference

How to determine the Security Patch Level of an Android device?

How can I determine the security patch level of an Android device using an API or other mechanism? I'm looking for the same security patch information that can be found manually by clicking the Settings -> About menu on the device.
Google issues security patches every month, for example 2016-12-01.

In Android SDK 23 (Marshmallow) and later, you can retrieve the security patch date from android.os.Build.VERSION.SECURITY_PATCH. The date is a string value in YYYY-MM-DD form.
In Lollipop, you can use the getprop command to read the value of ro.build.version.security_patch. See this S/O question for how to execute getprop using ProcessBuilder.
Security patches have been released on a monthly basis since October 2015, see Android Security Bulletins for more details.

I do not think that is possible without root access since the Security Patch Level is stored in ro.build.version.security_patch field inside build.prop which is in /system/ path.
If you have root access, you can just read that file and look for the above mentioned field.
EDIT: as #v6ak mentioned, you access the value of the properly without root too.

This value is stored in the /system/bin/getprop system file. You can read it in this way:
try {
Process process = new ProcessBuilder()
.command("/system/bin/getprop")
.redirectErrorStream(true)
.start();
InputStream is = process.getInputStream();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
str += line + "\n";
if (str.contains("security_patch")) {
String[] splitted = line.split(":");
if (splitted.length == 2) {
return splitted[1];
}
break;
}
}
br.close();
process.destroy();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

From an adb shell you can execute getprop ro.build.version.security_patch.
Hopefully those properties are available to a non-root process on Android.
So in C/C++ I'd try using:
system("getprop ro.build.version.security_patch");
Or in Java something like:
import android.os.Bundle;
public static final String SECURITY_PATCH = SystemProperties.get(
"ro.build.version.security_patch");

you can also use the following adb command
adb shell getprop | egrep

Android - Can i get total running time?

Please excuse my english.
In the Device Settings the system status just shows the recent uptime.
I want the total uptime from factory.

In Android, there is no direct way to get total Uptime from factory.
There is a kinda-workaround, where via PackageManager you can get the install time of and app using getPackageInfo() and long firstInstallTime. So, you can try to get the oldest app installed and take it from there.
Besides that - like I have said, there is no direct way.
Based on answer from here

adb shell commend in java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().
String cmd = "shellscript.sh";
String cmdreturn = "";
Runtime run = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process pr = run.exec(cmd);
pr.waitFor();
BufferedReader buf = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(pr.getInputStream()));
while ((line=buf.readLine())!=null) {
System.out.println(cmdreturn);
}
Refer adb and Debugging

Wrong output with logcat inside my application

I'm developing a multi-tab application. In one of the tab I want to show the logcat but I have a lot of problem running it correctly.
Right now I'm using the following command but I don't get anything in my TextView. :
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/system/bin/logcat -s com.vittorio:I");
But when I run the same command into Terminal it works flawlessy.
I've also tryed this other command :
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/system/bin/logcat *:I");
but for some reason it prints also Debug level messages ...
EDIT (1):
I've by-passed the problem by adding an high-level filter (java) to the whole log.. so I only print in my textview what I need. It's a very dirty solution but for now is the only one I managed to come with.
I would like to point out that I'me experiencing different behaviours on my phones :
Galaxy S Plus (rooted) : I can see the log.
Galaxy Y (rooted) : No log
Nexus One (not-rooted) : No log
EDIT (2) - SOLVED (NEED ROOTED PHONE):
After some struggling I managed to solve my problem. Actually navigating through the init.rc system file I saw that the permissions for /dev/log/main and /dev/log/system where setted to 620.. that's why I couldn't open the log on some of my phones. So I rooted also my Nexus One and added this commands into my activity before calling the logcat command :
Process process_su = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("su");
Process process_ch = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("chmod 777 /dev/log/main");
Done! :D
Hope this info will help anyone who will face my same issue.

You have to use this permission :
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_LOGS" />
and then you can use that snippet i found
try {
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("logcat -v");
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
StringBuilder logString=new StringBuilder();
String line;
while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
logString.append(line);
}
TextView tv = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.logTextView);
tv.setText(logString.toString());
} catch (IOException e) {
}
I didn't try it but it seems correct

Is it possible to call getevent from an Android service?

Is is possible to run getevent from an Android service and get output similar to what you see when running adb to call getevent from a command prompt on a development machine? When I try something like:
ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder()
.command("getevent")
.redirectErrorStream(true)
.start();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(builder.getInputStream()));
...
the output I get for each device looks like:
could not open /dev/input/event[n], Permission denied
Is it just not possible to access low level information like this because of Android's security protections? Would it be possible on a "rooted" device?
Why I am trying to do this:
I would like to record a user's actions (touch and gesture events) on an Android device for the purpose of usability testing. An accessibility service seems to be the way to go, but the information is not detailed enough. For a swipe gesture, for example, I cannot get the screen coordinates of where the user swiped. I was thinking that getting the low-level input from the touch screen might let me get more detailed information. Maybe there is a better way to do this?
(I'm a newbie in the Android world. This kind of thing is easy on Windows.)

You can do like this.
th = new Thread(new Runnable(){
private Process exec;
#Override
public void run() {
try {
exec = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"su","-c","getevent -t " + device});
InputStreamReader is = new InputStreamReader(
exec.getInputStream());
String s;
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(is);
while(((s = br.readLine()) != null) && run){
...
}
is.close();
exec.destroy();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
You must use 'su' to get the root permission, but by this way you can't get the real time event, because there is a buffer size of 4k, you could get data only after contained 4k data.

Search for UIAutomator. This does what you want to do.

Your phone must be rooted to execute getevent/sendevent command.
One way is to install any terminal emulator from play store like Qute: Command Console & Terminal Emulator.
In terminal enter following:
1) su (it'll gain the root access required for getevent)
2) getevent (or getevent -c 8 to output only 8 lines else it would flood the terminal)

run external commands from java(Android) and read continuous output

I want to run excutable such as ping(or any other which gives continuous output) and read its output and print it in my GUI.
I used following method to run my commands:
command=Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ping www.google.com");
and I am reading the output as following:
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(command.getInputStream()));
while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line+"\n");
}
this works fine , although display output pretty late compared to time taken when i execute ./excutable using adb -d shell.
As I want to this output(line) in gui so I make a TextView and append the output(line) in it as:
txtview=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.textview);
while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
txtview.append(line+"\n");
System.out.println(line+"\n");
}
but this crashes my application.
please tell me how to get over this problem.

If your last block of code is being executed in an Activity, then you are probably blocking the UI thread for too long. This will cause Android to force close your application. Try using AsyncTask to get the output and update your GUI.