Android NDK build with ANT script

Question

Can we use the ANT script for Android NDK builds ? If Yes how? And if no, then why Not ?

I don't have any idea about it

David Given · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-12T14:59:41.713

43

Call ndk-build from your -pre-build target, like this:

<target name="-pre-build">
    <exec executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build" failonerror="true"/>
</target>

<target name="clean" depends="android_rules.clean">
    <exec executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build" failonerror="true">
        <arg value="clean"/>
    </exec>
</target>

Then you can set ndk.dir to point at the NDK directory from your local.properties file, or set it on the command line. I do this:

ant -Dsdk.dir=/home/dg/apps/android-sdk-linux_x86-r11/ -Dndk.dir=/home/dg/apps/android-ndk-r6b release

Now running ant will build your native code automatically. Plus, running 'ant clean' will clean your native code.

Updated: Added failonerror="true" to the <exec> tasks --- this causes ant to abort if the make fails. Without it it'll just go right ahead and generate an APK with an invalid binary in it. Not good!

edited Oct 12 '11 at 14:59

answered Sep 30 '11 at 13:36

David Given

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Thanks Actually done with it, but forget to edit here what I did is this – Sachchidanand Sep 30 '11 at 14:14
2

On windows, you have to use `sh` as the executable, and the ndk-build script as the first argument. – Tom Whittock Mar 03 '12 at 11:58
In what file do those directives go? isn't the build.xml file generated by the android tool?, so changes would be destroyed if you have to update the project. – Mutant Bob Sep 14 '12 at 15:49
I *believe* that the automatic build.xml generator will attempt to merge around your own customisations when updating the project, but I don't use it so I can't tell you for sure. – David Given Sep 15 '12 at 10:49
1

You should put this custom build step in custom_rules.xml as it is included in to the autogenerated build.xml but not modified. – user2746401 Jul 23 '14 at 12:58
On windows use: `ndk-build.cmd` instead of `ndk-build` – Peterdk Aug 21 '14 at 15:15
What's the `release` suffix for? – IgorGanapolsky Apr 05 '16 at 17:00
It tells ant to build the target called `release`, which (IIRC) is part of the standard Android rules to generate a release-mode apk file. – David Given Apr 06 '16 at 21:41

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '13 at 00:04

9

here is what to add to your build.xml as others stated:

<target name="-pre-build">
    <exec executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build" failonerror="true"/>
</target>

<target name="clean" depends="android_rules.clean">
    <exec executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build" failonerror="true">
        <arg value="clean"/>
    </exec>
</target>

define the ndk.dir in local.properties file: ndk.dir=C:\EclipseWorkspace\android-ndk-r8d

The situation i wanted to mention after doing this you get an error "%1 is not a valid Win32 application" while running ANT against this target override. For me i had to upgrade to NDK R8d and also update the following line so that it fetches ndk-build.cmd (this version of ndk can run on windows and via cygwin:

exec executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build.cmd" failonerror="true"

answered Feb 25 '13 at 00:04

j2emanue

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thanks j2emanue for helping out. But answer is given and accepted already :) – Sachchidanand Feb 26 '13 at 06:27
Hopefully this can help others was the intention, thanks though. – j2emanue Feb 28 '13 at 15:04
3

the '.cmd' part is important on windows – Hoang Tran Jun 02 '14 at 11:10
for windows, [...executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build"...] should be, [...executable="${ndk.dir}/ndk-build.cmd"...] as per the comment by @Hoang Tran – hyena Feb 16 '16 at 07:01
Trying to use the Visual Studio installation of ant to build APK from C++ source, running ccmd: – Sixjac Mar 10 '22 at 03:11

Android NDK build with ANT script

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