ndk=true page.template=sdk ndk.mac64_download=android-ndk-r10d-darwin-x86_64.bin ndk.mac64_bytes=442691567 ndk.mac64_checksum=cb101e1e62d56ea75b215f6bc6c27fae ndk.mac32_download=android-ndk-r10d-darwin-x86.bin ndk.mac32_bytes=441545213 ndk.mac32_checksum=0aeb3dc062dc457a4cd01e72eadb2379 ndk.linux64_download=android-ndk-r10d-linux-x86_64.bin ndk.linux64_bytes=459151600 ndk.linux64_checksum=263b83071e6bca15f67898548d8d236e ndk.linux32_download=android-ndk-r10d-linux-x86.bin ndk.linux32_bytes=449997190 ndk.linux32_checksum=70ed6d8c34e7e620c145b791e8eeef89 ndk.win64_download=android-ndk-r10d-windows-x86_64.exe ndk.win64_bytes=472613732 ndk.win64_checksum=9a33f96da58a7e0b70e47d27b4a880b4 ndk.win32_download=android-ndk-r10d-windows-x86.exe ndk.win32_bytes=455427281 ndk.win32_checksum=c0930abfae0c990c4d191cc4ebd46b68 page.title=Android NDK @jd:body

In this document

  1. Downloads
  2. Revisions
  3. System and Software Requirements
  4. Installing the NDK
  5. Getting Started with the NDK
    1. Using the NDK
  6. Contents of the NDK
    1. Development tools
    2. Documentation
    3. Sample apps

The NDK is a toolset that allows you to implement parts of your app using native-code languages such as C and C++. For certain types of apps, this can be helpful so you can reuse existing code libraries written in these languages, but most apps do not need the Android NDK.

Before downloading the NDK, you should understand that the NDK will not benefit most apps. As a developer, you need to balance its benefits against its drawbacks. Notably, using native code on Android generally does not result in a noticable performance improvement, but it always increases your app complexity. In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++.

Typical good candidates for the NDK are CPU-intensive workloads such as game engines, signal processing, physics simulation, and so on. When examining whether or not you should develop in native code, think about your requirements and see if the Android framework APIs provide the functionality that you need.

Downloads

Revisions

The following sections provide information about releases of the NDK.

Android NDK, Revision 10d (December 2014)

Important changes:
  • Made GCC 4.8 the default for all 32-bit ABIs. Deprecated GCC 4.6, and will remove it next release. To restore previous behavior, either add NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.6 to ndk-build, or add --toolchain=arm-linux-androideabi-4.6 when executing make-standalone-toolchain.sh on the command line. GCC 4.9 remains the default for 64-bit ABIs.
  • Stopped all x86[_64] toolchains from adding -mstackrealign by default. The NDK toolchain assumes a 16-byte stack alignment. The tools and options used by default enforce this rule. A user writing assembly code must make sure to preserve stack alignment, and ensure that other compilers also comply with this rule. (GCC bug 38496)
  • Added Address Sanitizer functionality to Clang 3.5 support to the ARM and x86 ABIs. For more information on this change, see the Address Sanitizer project.
  • Introduced the requirement, starting from API level 21, to use -fPIE -pie when building. In API levels 16 and higher, ndk-build uses PIE when building. This change has a number of implications, which are discussed in Developer Preview Issue 888. These implications do not apply to shared libraries.
Important bug fixes:
  • Made more fixes related to A53 Errata #835769 in the aarch64-linux-android-4.9 linker. As part of this, GCC passes a new option, --fix-cortex-a53-835769, when -mfix-cortex-a53-835769 (enabled by default) is specified. For more information, see this binutils message and this binutils message.
  • Documented a fix to a libc++ sscanf/vsscanf hang that occurred in API level 21. The fix itself had been implemented in r10c. (Issue 77988)
  • Fixed an AutoFDO (-fauto-profile) crash that occurred with GCC 4.9 when -Os was specified. (Issue 77571)
Other bug fixes:
  • Made the following header and library fixes:
    • Added posix_memalign to API level 16. Also, added a prototype in stdlib.h to API levels 16 to 19. (Issue 77861)
    • Fixed stdatomic.h so that it includes <atomic> only for C++11.
    • Modified the following headers for standalone use: sys/user.h, and gl2ext.h, dlext.h, fts.h, sgidefs.h for API level 21.
    • Modified sys/user.h to rename mxcsr_mask as mxcr_mask, and to change the data type for u_ar0
      • from unsigned long to struct user_regs_struct*.
    • Changed sysconf() return value type from int to long.
  • Fixed ndk-build's handling of thumb for LOCAL_ARM_MODE: In r10d, ndk-build adds LOCAL_LDFLAGS+=-mthumb by default, unless one of the following conditions applies:
    • You have set LOCAL_ARM_MODE equal to arm.
    • You are doing a debug build (with settings such as APP_OPTIM=debug and AndroidManifest.xml containing android:debuggable="true"), where ARM mode is the default in order to retain compatibility with earlier toolchains. (Issue 74040)
  • Fixed LOCAL_SRC_FILES in ndk-build to use Windows absolute paths. (Issue 74333)
  • Removed bash-specific code from ndk-gdb. (Issue 73338)
  • Removed bash-specific code from make-standalone-toolchain.sh. (Issue 74145)
  • Revised documentation concerning a fix for System.loadLibrary() transitive dependencies. (Issue 41790)
  • Fixed a problem that was preventing 64-bit packages from extracting on Ubuntu 14.04 and OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). (Issue 78148)
  • Fixed an issue with LOCAL_PCH to improve Clang support. (Issue 77575)
  • Clarified "requires executable stack" warning from ld.gold. (Issue 79115)

Android NDK, Revision 10c (October 2014)

Important changes:
  • Made the following changes to download structure:
    • Each package now contains both the 32- and the 64-bit headers, libraries, and tools for its respective platform.
    • STL libraries with debugging info no longer need be downloaded separately.
  • Changed everything previously called Android-L to the official release designation: android-21.
  • Updated GCC 4.9 by rebasing to the google branch of the GCC repository. Major differences from the upstream version of GCC 4.9 include:
    • The -O2 option now turns on vectorization, without loop peeling but with more aggressive unrolling.
    • Enhancements to FDO and LIPO

      • For more detailed information, see Important bug fixes below.

  • Added Clang 3.5 support to all hosts: NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang now picks Clang 3.5. Note that:
    • ARM and x86 default to using the integrated assembler. If this causes issues, use -fno-integrated-as as a workaround.
    • Clang 3.5 issues more warnings for unused flags, such as the -finline-functions option that GCC supports.

      • When migrating from projects using GCC, you can use -Wno-invalid-command-line-argument and -Wno-unused-command-line-argument to ignore the unused flags until you're able decide on what to do with them longer-term.

  • Made it possible to enter ART debugging mode, when debugging on an Android 5.0 device using ART as its virtual machine, by specifying the art-on option. For more information, see prebuilt/common/gdb/common.setup in the directory containing the NDK.
  • Removed support for Clang 3.3.
  • Deprecated GCC 4.6, and may remove it from future releases.
  • Updated mclinker to 2.8 with Identical Code Folding ("ICF") support. Specify ICF using the --icf option.
  • Broadened arm_neon.h support in x86 and x86_64, attaining coverage of ~93% of NEON intrinsics. For more information about NEON support:
    • Navigate to the NDK Programmer's Guide (docs/Programmers_Guide/html/), and see Architectures and CPUs > Neon.
    • Examine the updated hello-neon sample in samples/.
    • See Intel's guide to porting from ARM NEON to Intel SSE.
  • Documented support for _FORTIFY_SOURCE in headers/libs/android-21, which appeared in r10 (when android-21 was still called Android-L), but had no documentation.
Important bug fixes:
Other bug fixes:
  • Made the following header and library fixes to android-21:
    • Added more TV keycodes: android/keycodes.h
    • Added more constants and six new sensor functions to android/sensor.h: ASensorManager_getDefaultSensorEx, ASensor_getFifoMaxEventCount, ASensor_getFifoReservedEventCount, ASensor_getStringType, ASensor_getReportingMode, and ASensor_isWakeUpSensor.
    • Fixed stdatomic.h to improve compatibility with GCC 4.6, and provide support for the <atomic> header.
    • Added sys/ucontext.h and sys/user.h to all API levels. The signal.h header now includes <sys/ucontext.h>. You may remove any existing definition of struct ucontext.
    • Added posix_memalign to API levels 17, 18, and 19.
    • Added the following functions to all architectures: android_set_abort_message, posix_fadvise, posix_fadvise64, pthread_gettid_np.
    • Added the required permissions to the native-media/AndroidManifest.xml sample. (Issue 106640)
    • Added clock_nanosleep and clock_settime to API level 21. (Issue 77372)
    • Removed the following symbols from all architectures: get_malloc_leak_info, free_malloc_leak_info, __srget, __swbuf, __srefill, __swsetup, __sdidinit, __sflags, __sfp, __sinit, __smakebuf, __sflush, __sread, __swrite, __sseek, __sclose, _fwalk, __sglue, __get_thread, __wait4, __futex_wake, __open, __get_tls, __getdents64, and dlmalloc.
    • Removed the following functions from the 64-bit architectures: basename_r, dirname_r, __isthreaded, _flush_cache (mips64).
    • Removed the following function from the 32-bit architectures: __signalfd4.
    • Changed the type of the third argument from size_t to int in the following functions: strtoll_l, strtoull_l, wcstoll_l, and wcstoull_l.
    • Restored the following functions to the 64-bit architecture: arc4random, arc4random_buf, and arc4random_uniform.
    • Moved cxa_* and the new and delete operators back to libstdc++.so. This change restores r9d behavior; previous versions of r10 contained dummy files.
  • Restored MXU support in GCC 4.8 and 4.9 for mips. This support had been absent from r10 and r10b because those versions of GCC had been compiled with binutils-2.24, which did not support MXU. It now does.
  • Fixed --toolchain= in make-standalone-toolchain.sh so that it now properly supports use of a suffix specifying a version of Clang.
  • Fixed the libc++/armeabi strtod() functions.
  • Made fixes to NDK documentation in docs/.
Other changes:
  • Enhanced cpu-features to detect ARMv8 support for the following instruction sets: AES, CRC32, SHA2, SHA1, and 64-bit PMULL/PMULL2. (Issue 106360)
  • Modified ndk-build to use *-gcc-ar, which is available in GCC 4.8, GCC 4.9, and Clang. Clang specifies it, instead of *-ar. This setting brings improved LTO support.
  • Removed the include-fixed/linux/a.out.h and include-fixed/linux/compiler.h headers from the GCC compiler. (Issue 73728)
  • Fixed an issue related to -flto with GCC 4.8 on Mac OS X. The error message read:
    • .../ld: error: .../libexec/gcc/arm-linux-androideabi/4.9/liblto_plugin.so
Symbol not found: _environ
  • Fixed a typo in build-binary.mk. (Issue 76992)
Important known issues:
  • Specifying -Os (-fauto-profile) in GCC4.9 may cause crashing. (Issue 77571)

Android NDK, Revision 10b (September 2014)

Important notes:
  • Because of the 512MB size restriction on downloadable packages, the following 32-bit items are not in the 32-bit NDK download packages. Instead, they reside in the 64-bit ones:
    • Android-L headers
    • GCC 4.9
  • Currently, the only Renderscript support provided by the NDK is for 32-bit Renderscript with Android 4.4 (API level 19). You cannot build HelloComputeNDK (the only Renderscript sample) with any other combination of Renderscript (32- or 64-bit) and Android version.
  • To compile native-codec, you must use a 64-bit NDK package, which is where all the Android-L headers are located.
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed gdb 7.6 in GCC 4.8/4.9. (Issues 74112 and 74371.)
  • Fixed GCC 4.8/4.9 for x86, so that they no longer enable -msse4.2 and -mpopcnt by default. (Issue 73843.)
Other bug fixes:
  • Removed stdio.h from the include-fixed/ directories of all versions of GCC. (Issue 73728.)
  • Removed duplicate header files from the Windows packages in the platforms/android-L/arch-*/usr/include/linux/netfilter*/ directories. (Issue 73704.)
  • Fixed a problem that prevented Clang from building HelloComputeNDK.
  • Fixed atexit. (Issue 66595.)
  • Made various fixes to the docs in docs/ and sources/third_party/googletest/README.NDK. (Issue 74069.)
  • Made the following fixes to the Android-L headers:
    1. Added the following functions to ctype.h and wchar.h: dn_expand(), grantpt(), inet_nsap_addr(), inet_nsap_ntoa(), insque(), nsdispatch(), posix_openpt(), __pthread_cleanup_pop(), __pthread_cleanup_push(), remque(), setfsgid(), setfsuid(), splice(), tee(), twalk() (Issue 73719), and 42 *_l() functions.
    2. Renamed cmsg_nxthdr to __cmsg_nxthdr.
    3. Removed __libc_malloc_dispatch.
    4. Changed the ptrace() prototype to long ptrace(int, ...);.
    5. Removed sha1.h.
    6. Extended android_dlextinfo in android/dlext.h.
    7. Annotated __NDK_FPABI__ for functions receiving or returning float- or double-type values in stdlib.h, time.h, wchar.h, and complex.h.
Other changes:
  • Updated mipsel-linux-android-4.9 and mips64el-linux-android-4.9, implementing a new multilib directory layout, and providing support for gdb-7.7
  • Enhanced cpu-features to detect more arm64 features. (Change list 100339.)

Android NDK, Revision 10 (July 2014)

Important changes:
  • Added 3 new ABIs, all 64-bit: arm64-v8a, x86_64, mips64.
    • Note that:
    • GCC 4.9 is the default compiler for 64-bit ABIs. Clang is currently version 3.4. NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang may not work for arm64-v8a and mips64.
    • Android-L is the first level with 64-bit support. Note that this API level is a temporary one, and only for L-preview. An actual API level number will replace it at L-release.
    • This release includes now includes all32 and all64 settings for APP_ABI.
      • APP_ABI=all32 is equivalent to APP_ABI=armeabi,armeabi-v7a,x86,mips.
      • APP_ABI=all64 is equivalent to APP_ABI=arm64-v8a,x86_64,mips64.
      • APP_ABI=all selects all ABIs.
    • The new GNU libstdc++ in Android-L contains all <tr1/cmath> Before defining your own math function, check _GLIBCXX_USE_C99_MATH_TR1 to see a function with that name already exists, in order to avoid "multiple definition" errors from the linker.
    • The cpu-features library has been updated for the ARMv8 kernel. The existing cpu-features library may fail to detect the presence of NEON on the ARMv8 platform. Recompile your code with the new version.
  • Added a new platforms/android-L/ API directory. It includes:
    • Updated Bionic headers, which had not changed from Android API levels 3 (Cupcake) to 19 (KitKat). This new version, for level L, is to be synchronized with AOSP.
    • New media APIs and a native-codec sample.
    • An updated Android.h header for SLES/OpenSLES, enabling support for single-precision, floating-point audio format in AudioPlayer.
    • GLES 3.1 and AEP extensions to libGLESv3.so.
    • GLES2 and GLES3 headers updated to the latest official Khronos versions.
  • Added GCC 4.9 compilers to the 32-/64-bit ABIs. GCC 4.9 is the default (only) compiler for 64-bit ABIs, as previously mentioned. For 32-bit ABIs, you must explcitly enable GCC 4.9, as GCC 4.6 is still the default.
    • For ndk-build, enable 32-bit, GCC 4.9 building either by adding NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.9 to Application.mk, or exporting it as an environment variable from the command line.
    • For a standalone toolchain, use the --toolchain= option in the make-standalone-toolchain.sh script. For example: --toolchain=arm-linux-androideabi-4.9.
  • Upgraded GDB to version 7.6 in GCC 4.8/4.9 and x86*. Since GDB is still at version GDB-7.3.x in GCC 4.6 (the default for ARM and MIPS), you must set NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.8 or 4.9 to enable ndk-gdb to select GDB 7.6.
  • Added the -mssse3 build option to provide SSSE3 support, and made it the default for ABI x86 (upgrading from SSE3). The image released by Google does not contain SSSE3 instructions.
  • Updated GCC 4.8 to 4.8.3.
  • Improved ARM libc++ EH support by switching from gabi++ to libc++abi. For details, see the "C++ Support" section of the documentation. Note that:
    • All tests except for locale now pass for Clang 3.4 and GCC 4.8. For more information, see the "C++ Support" section of the documentation.
    • The libc++ libraries for X86 and MIPS libc++ still use gabi++.
    • GCC 4.7 and later can now use <atomic>.
    • You must add -fno-strict-aliasing if you use <list>, because __list_imp::_end_ breaks TBAA rules. (Issue 61571.)
    • As of GCC 4.6, LIBCXX_FORCE_REBUILD:=true no longer rebuilds libc++. Rebuilding it requires the use of a different compiler. Note that Clang 3.3 is untested.
  • mclinker is now version 2.7, and has aarch64 Linux support.
  • Added precompiled header support for headers specified by LOCAL_PCH. (Issue 25412).
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed libc++ so that it now compiles std::feof, etc. (Issue 66668).
  • Fixed a Clang 3.3/3.4 atomic library call that caused crashes in some of the libc++ tests for ABI armeabi.
  • Fixed Clang 3.4 crashes that were occurring on reading precompiled headers. (Issue 66657).
  • Fixed the Clang 3.3/3.4 -O3 assert on:
    • llvm-3.2/llvm/include/llvm/MDBuilder.h:64: llvm::MDNode* llvm::MDBuilder::createBranchWeights(llvm::ArrayRef): Assertion Weights.size() >= 2 && "Need at least two branch weights!" (Issue 57381).
  • Fixed the following Clang 3.3/3.4 crash:
    • Assertion failed: (!Fn && "cast failed but able to resolve overload expression!!"), function CheckCXXCStyleCast, file Volumes/data/ndk-toolchain/src/llvm-3.3/llvm/tools/clang/lib/Sema/SemaCast.cpp, line 2018. (Issue 66950).
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed headers:
    • Fixed 32-bit ssize_t to be int instead of long int.
    • Fixed WCHAR_MIN and WCHAR_MAX so that they they take appropriate signs according to the architecture they're running on:
      • X86/MIPS: signed.
      • ARM: unsigned.
      • To force X86/MIPS to default to unsigned, use -D__WCHAR_UNSIGNED__.
      • To force wchar_t to be 16 bits, use -fshort-wchar.
    • Removed non-existent symbols from 32-bit libc.so, and added pread64, pwrite64, ftruncate64 for Android API level 12 and higher. (Issue 69319). For more information, see the commit message accompanying AOSP change list 94137.
  • Fixed GCC warning about redefinition of putchar. Warning message reads:
    • include/stdio.h:236:5: warning: conflicts with previous declaration here [-Wattributes] int putchar(int); (Change list 91185).
  • Fixed make-standalone-toolchain.sh --stl=libc++ so that it:
    • Copies cxxabi.h. (Issue 68001).
    • Runs in directories other than the NDK install directory. (Issues 67690 and 68647).
  • Fixed GCC/Windows to quote arguments only when necessary for spawning processes in external programs. This change decreases the likelihood of exceeding the 32K length limit.
  • Fixed an issue that made it impossible to adjust the APP_PLATFORM environment variable.
  • Fixed the implementation of IsSystemLibrary() in crazy_linker so that it uses strrchr() instead of strchr() to find the library path's true basename.
  • Fixed native-audio's inability to build in debug mode.
  • Fixed gdb's inability to print extreme floating-point numbers. (Issue 69203).
  • Fixed Clang 3.4 inability to compile with -Wl,-shared (as opposed to -shared, which had no compilation issues). The problem was that Clang added -pie for Android targets if neither -shared nor -static existed. This behavior, which was incorrect, caused the linker to complain that -shared and -pie could not co-exist.
Other changes:
  • Added arm_neon.h to the x86 toolchain so that it now emulates ~47% of Neon. There is currently no support for 64-bit types. For more information, see the section on ARM Neon intrinsics support in the x86 documentation.
  • Ported ARM/GOT_PREL optimization (present in GCC 4.6 built from the GCC google branch) to ARM GCC 4.8/4.9. This optimization sometimes reduces instruction count when accessing global variables. As an example, see the build.sh script in $NDK/tests/build/b14811006-GOT_PREL-optimization/.
  • Added ARM version for STL gabi++, stlport, and libc++. They now have both it and Thumb mode.
  • It is now possible to call the make-standalone-toolchain.sh script with --toolchain=x86_64-linux-android-4.9, which is equivalent to --toolchain=x86_64-4.9.

Android NDK, Revision 9d (March 2014)

Important changes:
  • Added support for the Clang 3.4 compiler. The NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang option now picks Clang 3.4. GCC 4.6 is still the default compiler.
  • Added APP_ABI=armeabi-v7a-hard, with additional multilib option -mfloat-abi=hard. These options are for use with ARM GCC 4.6/4.8 and Clang 3.3/3.4 (which use 4.8's assembler, linker, and libs). When using these options, note the following changes:
    • When executing the ndk-build script, add the following options for armeabi-v7a target: 
      TARGET_CFLAGS += -mhard-float -D_NDK_MATH_NO_SOFTFP=1
TARGET_LDFLAGS += -Wl,--no-warn-mismatch -lm_hard
      The built library is copied to libs/armeabi-v7a. For make to behave as expected, you cannot specify both armeabi-v7a and armeabi-v7a-hard as make targets (i.e., on the APP_ABI= line). Doing so causes one of them to be ignored. Note that APP_ABI=all is still equivalent to armeabi armeabi-v7a x86 mips.
    • The make-standalone-toolchain.sh script copies additional libaries under /hard directories. Add the above CFLAGS and LFLAGS to your makefile to enable GCC or Clang to link with libraries in /hard.
  • Added the yasm assembler, as well as LOCAL_ASMFLAGS and EXPORT_ASMFLAGS flags for x86 targets. The ndk-build script uses prebuilts/*/bin/yasm* to build LOCAL_SRC_FILES that have the .asm extension.
  • Updated MClinker to 2.6.0, which adds -gc-sections support.
  • Added experimental libc++ support (upstream r201101). Use this new feature by following these steps:
    • Add APP_STL := c++_static or APP_STL := c++_shared in Application.mk. You may rebuild from source via LIBCXX_FORCE_REBUILD := true
    • Execute make-standalone-toolchain.sh --stl=libc++ to create a standalone toolchain with libc++ headers/lib.
    For more information, see CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html. (Issue 36496)
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed an uncaught throw from an unexpected exception handler for GCC 4.6/4.8 ARM EABI. (GCC Issue 59392)
  • Fixed GCC 4.8 so that it now correctly resolves partial specialization of a template with a dependent, non-type template argument. (GCC Issue 59052)
  • Added more modules to prebuilt python (Issue 59902):
    • Mac OS X: zlib, bz2, _curses, _curses_panel, _hashlib, _ssl
    • Linux: zlib, nis, crypt, _curses, and _curses_panel
  • Fixed the x86 and MIPS gdbserver event_getmsg_helper.
  • Fixed numerous issues in the RenderScript NDK toolchain, including issues with compatibility across older devices and C++ reflection.

Other bug fixes:
  • Header fixes:
    • Fixed a missing #include <sys/types.h> in android/asset_manager.h for Android API level 13 and higher. (Issue 64988)
    • Fixed a missing #include in android/rect_manager.h for Android API level 14 and higher.
    • Added JNICALL to JNI_OnLoad and JNI_OnUnload in jni.h. Note that JNICALL is defined as __NDK_FPABI__ For more information, see sys/cdefs.h.
    • Updated the following headers so that they can be included without the need to manually include their dependencies (Issue 64679):
      • android/tts.h
EGL/eglext.h
fts.h
GLES/glext.h
GLES2/gl2ext.h
OMXAL/OpenMAXSL_Android.h
SLES/OpenSLES_Android.h
sys/prctl.h
sys/utime.h
    • Added sys/cachectl.h for all architectures. MIPS developers can now include this header instead of writing #ifdef __mips__.
    • Fixed platforms/android-18/include/android/input.h by adding __NDK_FPABI__ to functions taking or returning float or double values.
    • Fixed MIPS struct stat, which was incorrectly set to its 64-bit counterpart for Android API level 12 and later. This wrong setting was a regression introduced in release r9c.
    • Defined __PTHREAD_MUTEX_INIT_VALUE, __PTHREAD_RECURSIVE_MUTEX_INIT_VALUE, and __PTHREAD_ERRORCHECK_MUTEX_INIT_VALUE for Android API level 9 and lower.
    • Added scalbln, scalblnf, and scalblnl to x86 libm.so for APIs 18 and later.
    • Fixed a typo in sources/android/support/include/iconv.h. (Issue 63806)
  • Fixed gabi++ std::unexpected() to call std::terminate() so that a user-defined std::terminate() handler has a chance to run.
  • Fixed gabi++ to catch std::nullptr.
  • Fixed samples Teapot and MoreTeapots:
    • Solved a problem with Tegra 2 and 3 chips by changing specular variables to use medium precision. Values for specular power can now be less than 1.0.
    • Changed the samples so that pressing the volume button restores immersive mode and invalidates SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE_STICKY. Screen rotation does not trigger onSystemUiVisibilityChange, and so does not restore immersive mode.
  • Fixed the ndk-build script to add -rpath-link=$SYSROOT/usr/lib and -rpath-link=$TARGET_OUT in order to use ld.bfd to link executables. (Issue 64266)
  • Removed -Bsymbolic from all STL builds.
  • Fixed ndk-gdb-py.cmd by setting SHELL as an environment variable instead of passing it to python.exe, which ignores the setting. (Issue 63054)
  • Fixed the make-standalone-toolchain.sh script so that the --stl=stlport option copies the gabi++ headers instead of symlinking them; the cmd.exe and MinGW shells do not understand symlinks created by cygwin.
Other changes:
  • Applied execution permissions to all *cmd scripts previously intended for use only in the cmd.exe shell, in case developers prefer to use ndk-build.cmd in cygwin instead of the recommended ndk-build script.
  • Improved the speed of the make-standalone-toolchain.sh script by moving instead of copying if the specified destination directory does not exist.

Android NDK, Revision 9c (December 2013)

This is a bug-fix-only release.

Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed a problem with GCC 4.8 ARM, in which the stack pointer is restored too early. This problem prevented the frame pointer from reliably accessing a variable in the stack frame. (GCC Issue 58854)
  • Fixed a problem with GCC 4.8 libstdc++, in which a bug in std::nth_element was causing generation of code that produced a random segfault. (Issue 62910)
  • Fixed GCC 4.8 ICE in cc1/cc1plus with -fuse-ld=mcld, so that the following error no longer occurs: 
    cc1: internal compiler error: in common_handle_option, at
opts.c:1774
  • Fixed -mhard-float support for __builtin math functions. For ongoing information on fixes for -mhard-float with STL, please follow Issue 61784.
Other bug fixes:
  • Header fixes:
    • Changed prototype of poll to poll(struct pollfd *, nfds_t, int); in poll.h.
    • Added utimensat to libc.so for Android API levels 12 and 19. These libraries are now included for all Android API levels 12 through 19.
    • Introduced futimens into libc.so, for Android API level 19.
    • Added missing clock_settime() and clock_nanosleep() to time.h for Android API level 8 and higher.
    • Added CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW, CLOCK_REALTIME_COARSE, CLOCK_MONOTONIC_COARSE, CLOCK_BOOTTIME, CLOCK_REALTIME_ALARM, and CLOCK_BOOTTIME_ALARM in time.h.
    • Removed obsolete CLOCK_REALTIME_HR and CLOCK_MONOTONIC_HR.
  • In samples Teapot, MoreTeapots, and source/android/ndk_helper:
    • Changed them so that they now use a hard-float abi for armeabi-v7a.
    • Updated them to use immersive mode on Android API level 19 and higher.
    • Fixed a problem with Check_ReleaseStringUTFChars in /system/lib/libdvm.so that was causing crashes on x86 devices.
  • Fixed ndk-build fails that happen in cygwin when the NDK package is referenced via symlink.
  • Fixed ndk-build.cmd fails that happen in windows cmd.exe when LOCAL_SRC_FILES contains absolute paths. (Issue 69992)
  • Fixed the ndk-stack script to proceed even when it can't parse a frame due to inability to find a routine, filename, or line number. In any of these cases, it prints ??.
  • Fixed the ndk-stack stack for windows-x64_64 targets so that it no longer erroneously matches a frame line with a line in the stack: section that doesn't contain pc, eip, or ip. For example: 
    I/DEBUG   ( 1151):     #00  5f09db68  401f01c4
/system/lib/libc.so
  • Fixed gabi++ so that it:
    • Does not use malloc() to allocate C++ thread-local objects.
    • Avoids deadlocks in gabi++ in cases where libc.debug.malloc is non-zero in userdebug/eng Android platform builds.
Other changes:
  • Added LOCAL_EXPORT_LDFLAGS.
  • Introduced the NDK_PROJECT_PATH=null setting for use in an integrated build system where options are explicitly passed to ndk-build. With this setting, ndk-build makes no attempt to look for NDK_PROJECT_PATH. This setting also prevents variables from deriving default settings from NDK_PROJECT_PATH. As a result, the following variables must now be explicitly specified (with their default values if such exist): NDK_OUT, NDK_LIBS_OUT, APP_BUILD_SCRIPT, NDK_DEBUG (optional, default to 0), and other APP_*'s contained in Application.mk.
  • APP_ABI can now be enumerated in a comma-delimited list. For example: 
    APP_ABI := "armeabi,armeabi-v7a"
  • Provided the ability to rebuild all of STL with debugging info in an optional, separate package called android-ndk-r9c-cxx-stl-libs-with-debugging-info.zip, using the -g option. This option helps the ndk-stack script provide better a stack dump across STL. This change should not affect the code/size of the final, stripped file.
  • Enhanced hello-jni samples to report APP_ABI at compilation.
  • Used the ar tool in Deterministic mode (option -D) to build static libraries. (Issue 60705)

Android NDK, Revision 9b (October 2013)

Important changes:
  • Updated {@code include/android/*h} and {@code math.h} for all Android API levels up to 18, including the addition of levels 13, 15, 16 and 17. For information on added APIs, see commit messages for Changes 68012 and 68014. (Issues 47150, 58528, and 38423)
  • Added support for Android API level 19, including Renderscript binding.
  • Added support for -mhard-float in the existing armeabi-v7a ABI. For more information and current restrictions on Clang, see {@code tests/device/hard-float/jni/Android.mk}.
  • Migrated from GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.8 to 4.8.2, and added diagnostic color support. To enable diagnostic colors, set -fdiagnostics-color=auto, -fdiagnostics-color=always, or export {@code GCC_COLORS} as shown below: 
    GCC_COLORS='error=01;31:warning=01;35:note=01;36:caret=01;32:locus=01:quote=01'
    For more information, see GCC Language Independent Options.
  • Added two new samples to demonstrate OpenGL ES 3.0 features: Teapot and MoreTeapots. These samples run on devices with Android 4.1 (API level 16) and higher.
  • Deprecated GCC 4.7 and Clang 3.2 support, which will be removed in the next release.
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed problem with ARM GCC 4.6 {@code thumb2} failing to generate 16-bit relative jump tables. (GCC Issue)
  • Fixed GCC 4.8 internal compiler error (ICE) on {@code g++.dg/cpp0x/lambda/lambda-defarg3.C}. (Change 62770, GCC Issue)
  • Fixed a problem with Windows 32-bit {@code *-gdb.exe} executables failing to launch. (Issue 58975)
  • Fixed GCC 4.8 ICE when building bullet library. The error message is as follows: 
    internal compiler error: verify_flow_info failed
    (Issue 58916, GCC Issue)
  • Modified GDB/ARM build to skip {@code ARM.exidx} data for unwinding in prologue code and added a command ({@code set arm exidx-unwinding}) to control exidx-based stack unwinding. (Issue 55826)
  • Fixed Clang 3.3 MIPS compiler problem where HI and LO registers are incorrectly reused.
  • Fixed issue with MIPS 4.7 ICE in {@code dbx_reg_number}. The error message is as follows: 
    external/icu4c/i18n/decimfmt.cpp:1322:1:
internal compiler error: in dbx_reg_number, at dwarf2out.c:10185
    (GCC Patch)
Other bug fixes:
  • Header fixes
    • Fixed the ARM {@code WCHAR_MIN} and {@code WCHAR_MAX} to be unsigned according to spec (the X86/MIPS versions are signed). Define {@code _WCHAR_IS_ALWAYS_SIGNED} to restore old behavior. (Issue 57749)
    • Fixed {@code include/netinet/tcp.h} to contain {@code TCP_INFO} state enum. (Issue 38881)
    • Fixed the {@code cdefs_elh.h} macro {@code _C_LABEL_STRING} to stop generating warnings in the GCC 4.8 toolchain when using c++11 mode. (Issue 58135, Issue 58652)
    • Removed non-existent functions {@code imaxabs} and {@code imaxdiv} from header {@code inttypes.h}.
    • Fixed issue with {@code pthread_exit()} return values and {@code pthread_self()}. (Issue 60686)
    • Added missing {@code mkdtemp()} function, which already exists in {@code bionic} header {@code stdlib.h}.
  • Fixed problem building {@code samples/gles3jni} with Clang on Android API level 11.
  • Fixed MCLinker to allow multiple occurrences of the following options: {@code -gc-sections} and {@code --eh-frame-hdr}.
  • Fixed MCLinker to accept the {@code --no-warn-mismatch} option.
  • Modified {@code cpu-features} option to not assume all VFPv4 devices support IDIV. Now this option only adds IDIV to white-listed devices, including Nexus 4. (Issue 57637)
  • Fixed problem with {@code android_native_app_glue.c} erroneously logging errors on event predispatch operations.
  • Fixed all operations on {@code gabi++} terminate and unexpected_handler to be thread-safe.
  • Fixed several issues with Clang -integrated-as option so it can pass tests for {@code ssax-instructions} and {@code fenv}.
  • Fixed GCC 4.6/4.7/4.8 compiler to pass the linker option {@code --eh-frame-hdr} even for static executables. For more information, see the GCC patch.
  • Fixed extra apostrophe in CPU-ARCH-ABIS.html. For more information, see NDK-DEPENDS.html. (Issue 60142)
  • Fixed extra quotes in ndk-build output on Windows. (Issue 60649)
  • Fixed Clang 3.3 to compile ARM's built-in, atomic operations such as {@code __atomic_fetch_add}, {@code __atomic_fetch_sub}, and {@code __atomic_fetch_or}.
  • Fixed Clang 3.3 ICE with customized {@code vfprintf}. (Clang issue)
Other changes:
  • Enabled OpenMP for all GCC builds. To use this feature, add the following flags to your build settings: 
    LOCAL_CFLAGS += -fopenmp
LOCAL_LDFLAGS += -fopenmp
    For code examples, see {@code tests/device/test-openmp}
  • Reduced the size of {@code ld.mcld} significantly (1.5MB vs. {@code ld.bfd} 3.5MB and {@code ld.gold} 7.5MB), resulting in a speed improvement of approximately 20%.
  • Added LOCAL_CONLYFLAGS and APP_CONLYFLAGS to specify options applicable to C only but not C++. The existing LOCAL_CFLAGS and APP_CFLAGS are also used for C++ compilation (to save trouble of specifying most options twice), so options such as -std=gnu99 may fail in g++ builds with a warning and clang++ builds with an error.
  • Added {@code gabi++} array helper functions.
  • Modified GCC builds so that all {@code libgcc.a} files are built with -funwind-tables to allow the stack to be unwound past previously blocked points, such as __aeabi_idiv0.
  • Added Ingenic MXU support in MIPS GCC4.6/4.7/4.8 with new -mmxu option.
  • Extended MIPS GCC4.6/4.7/4.8 -mldc1-sdc1 to control ldxc1/sdxc1 too
  • Added crazy linker. For more information, see {@code sources/android/crazy_linker/README.TXT}.
  • Fixed {@code bitmap-plasma} to draw to full screen rather than a 200x200 pixel area.
  • Reduced linux and darwin toolchain sizes by 25% by creating symlinks to identical files.

Android NDK, Revision 9 (July 2013)

Important changes:
  • Added support for Android 4.3 (API level 18). For more information, see {@code STABLE-APIS.html} and new code examples in {@code samples/gles3jni/README}.
  • Added headers and libraries for OpenGL ES 3.0, which is supported by Android 4.3 (API level 18) and higher.
  • Added GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.8 compiler to the NDK. Since GCC 4.6 is still the default, you must explicitly enable this option:
    • For {@code ndk-build} builds, export {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.8} or add it in {@code Application.mk}.
    • For standalone builds, use the {@code --toolchain=} option in {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh}, for example:
      {@code --toolchain=arm-linux-androideabi-4.8}

    Note: The {@code -Wunused-local-typedefs} option is enabled by {@code -Wall}. Be sure to add {@code __attribute__((unused))} if you use compile-time asserts like {@code sources/cxx-stl/stlport/stlport/stl/config/features.h}, line #311. For more information, see Change 55460

    Note: In the GCC 4.7 release and later, ARM compilers generate unaligned access code by default for ARMv6 and higher build targets. You may need to add the {@code -mno-unaligned-access} build option when building for kernels that do not support this feature.

  • Added Clang 3.3 support. The {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang} build option now picks Clang 3.3 by default.

    Note: Both GCC 4.4.3 and Clang 3.1 are deprecated, and will be removed from the next NDK release.

  • Updated GNU Project Debugger (GDB) to support python 2.7.5.
  • Added MCLinker to support Windows hosts. Since {@code ld.gold} is the default where available, you must add {@code -fuse-ld=mcld} in {@code LOCAL_LDFLAGS} or {@code APP_LDFLAGS} to enable MCLinker.
  • Added {@code ndk-depends} tool which prints ELF library dependencies. For more information, see {@code NDK-DEPENDS.html}. (Issue 53486)
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed potential event handling issue in {@code android_native_app_glue}. (Issue 41755)
  • Fixed ARM/GCC-4.7 build to generate sufficient alignment for NEON load and store instructions VST and VLD. (GCC Issue 57271)
  • Fixed a GCC 4.4.3/4.6/4.7 internal compiler error (ICE) for a constant negative index value on a string literal. (Issue 54623)
  • Fixed GCC 4.7 segmentation fault for constant initialization with an object address. (Issue 56508)
  • Fixed GCC 4.6 ARM segmentation fault for -O values when using Boost 1.52.0. (Issue 42891)
  • Fixed {@code libc.so} and {@code libc.a} to support the {@code wait4()} function. (Issue 19854)
  • Updated the x86 libc.so and libc.a files to include the {@code clone()} function.
  • Fixed {@code LOCAL_SHORT_COMMANDS} bug where the {@code linker.list} file is empty or not used.
  • Fixed GCC MIPS build on Mac OS to use CFI directives, without which {@code ld.mcld --eh-frame-hdr} fails frequently.
  • Fixed Clang 3.2 X86/MIPS internal compiler error in {@code llvm/lib/VMCore/Value.cpp}. (Change 59021)
  • Fixed GCC 4.7 64-bit Windows assembler crash. (Error: {@code out of memory allocating 4294967280 bytes}).
  • Updated {@code ndk-gdb} script so that the {@code --start} or {@code --launch} actions now wait for the GNU Debug Server, so that it can more reliably hit breakpoints set early in the execution path (such as breakpoints in JNI code). (Issue 41278)

    Note: This feature requires jdb and produces warning about pending breakpoints. Specify the {@code --nowait} option to restore previous behavior.

  • Fixed GDB crash when library list is empty.
  • Fixed GDB crash when using a {@code stepi} command past a {@code bx pc} or {@code blx pc} Thumb instruction. (Issue 56962, Issue 36149)
  • Fixed MIPS {@code gdbserver} to look for {@code DT_MIPS_RLD_MAP} instead of {@code DT_DEBUG}. (Issue 56586)
  • Fixed a circular dependency in the ndk-build script, for example: If A->B and B->B, then B was dropped from build. (Issue 56690)
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed the {@code ndk-build} script to enable you to specify a version of Clang as a command line option (e.g., {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang3.2}). Previously, only specifying the version as an environment variable worked.
  • Fixed gabi++ size of {@code _Unwind_Exception} to be 24 for MIPS build targets when using the Clang compiler. (Change 54141)
  • Fixed the {@code ndk-build} script to ensure that built libraries are actually removed from projects that include prebuilt static libraries when using the {@code ndk-build clean} command. (Change 54461, Change 54480)
  • Modified the {@code NDK_ANALYZE=1} option to be less verbose.
  • Fixed {@code gnu-libstdc++/Android.mk} to include a {@code backward/} path for builds that use backward compability. (Issue 53404)
  • Fixed a problem where {@code stlport new} sometimes returned random values.
  • Fixed {@code ndk-gdb} to match the order of {@code CPU_ABIS}, not {@code APP_ABIS}. (Issue 54033)
  • Fixed a problem where the NDK 64-bit build on MacOSX choses the wrong path for compiler. (Issue 53769)
  • Fixed build scripts to detect 64-bit Windows Vista. (Issue 54485)
  • Fixed x86 {@code ntonl/swap32} error: {@code invalid 'asm': operand number out of range}. (Issue 54465, Change 57242)
  • Fixed {@code ld.gold} to merge string literals.
  • Fixed {@code ld.gold} to handle large symbol alignment.
  • Updated {@code ld.gold} to enable the {@code --sort-section=name} option.
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3/4.6/4.7 to suppress the {@code -export-dynamic} option for statically linked programs. GCC no longer adds an {@code .interp} section for statically linked programs.
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3 {@code stlport} compilation error about inconsistent {@code typedef} of {@code _Unwind_Control_Block}. (Issue 54426)
  • Fixed {@code awk} scripts to handle {@code AndroidManifest.xml} files created on Windows which may contain trailing {@code \r} characters and cause build errors. (Issue 42548)
  • Fixed {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} to probe the {@code prebuilts/} directory to detect if the host is 32 bit or 64 bit.
  • Fixed the Clang 3.2 {@code -integrated-as} option.
  • Fixed the Clang 3.2 ARM EHABI compact model {@code pr1} and {@code pr2} handler data.
  • Added Clang {@code -mllvm -arm-enable-ehabi} option to fix the following Clang error: 
    clang: for the -arm-enable-ehabi option: may only occur zero or one times!
  • Fixed build failure when there is no {@code uses-sdk} element in application manifest. (Issue 57015)
Other changes:
  • Header Fixes
    • Modified headers to make {@code __set_errno} an inlined function, since {@code __set_errno} in {@code errno.h} is deprecated, and {@code libc.so} no longer exports it.
    • Modified {@code elf.h} to include {@code stdint.h}. (Issue 55443)
    • Fixed {@code sys/un.h} to be included independently of other headers. (Issue 53646)
    • Fixed all of the {@code MotionEvent_getHistorical} API family to take the {@code const AInputEvent* motion_event}. (Issue 55873)
    • Fixed {@code malloc_usable_size} to take {@code const void*}. (Issue 55725)
    • Fixed stdint.h to be more compatible with C99. (Change 46821)
    • Modified {@code wchar.h} to not redefine {@code WCHAR_MAX} and {@code WCHAR_MIN}
    • Fixed {@code <inttypes.h>} declaration for pointer-related {@code PRI} and {@code SCN} macros. (Issue 57218)
    • Changed the {@code sys/cdefs.h} header so that {@code __WCHAR_TYPE__} is 32-bit for API levels less than 9, which means that {@code wchat_t} is 32-bit for all API levels. To restore the previous behavior, define the {@code _WCHAR_IS_8BIT} boolean variable. (Issue 57267)
  • Added more formatting in NDK {@code docs/} and miscellaneous documentation fixes.
  • Added support for a thin archive technique when building static libraries. (Issue 40303)
  • Updated script {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} to support the {@code stlport} library in addition to {@code gnustl}, when you specify the option {@code --stl=stlport}. For more information, see {@code STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html}.
  • Updated the {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} script so that the {@code --llvm-version=} option creates the {@code $TOOLCHAIN_PREFIX-clang} and {@code $TOOLCHAIN_PREFIX-clang++} scripts in addition to {@code clang} and {@code clang++}, to avoid using the host's clang and clang++ definitions by accident.
  • Added two flags to re-enable two optimizations in upstream Clang but disabled in NDK for better compatibility with code compiled by GCC:
    • Added a {@code -fcxx-missing-return-semantics} flag to re-enable missing return semantics in Clang 3.2+. Normally, all paths should terminate with a return statement for a value-returning function. If this is not the case, clang inserts an undefined instruction (or trap in debug mode) at the path without a return statement. If you are sure your code is correct, use this flag to allow the optimizer to take advantage of the undefined behavior. If you are not sure, do not use this flag. The caller may still receive a random incorrect value, but the optimizer will not exploit it and make your code harder to debug.
    • Added a {@code -fglobal-ctor-const-promotion} flag to re-enable promoting global variables with static constructor to be constants. With this flag, the global variable optimization pass of LLVM tries to evaluate the global variables with static constructors and promote them to global constants. Although this optimization is correct, it may cause some incompatability with code compiled by GCC. For example, code may do {@code const_cast} to cast the constant to mutable and modify it. In GCC, the variable is in read-write and the code is run by accident. In Clang, the const variable is in read-only memory and may cause your application to crash.
  • Added {@code -mldc1-sdc1} to the MIPS GCC and Clang compilers. By default, compilers align 8-byte objects properly and emit the {@code ldc1} and {@code sdc1} instructions to move them around. If your app uses a custom allocator that does not always align with a new object's 8-byte boundary in the same way as the default allocator, your app may crash due to {@code ldc1} and {@code sdc1} operations on unaligned memory. In this case, use the {@code -mno-ldc1-sdc1} flag to workaround the problem.
  • Downgraded the event severity from warning to info if {@code APP_PLATFORM_LEVEL} is larger than {@code APP_MIN_PLATFORM_LEVEL}. The {@code APP_PLATFORM_LEVEL} may be lower than {@code APP_PLATFORM} in {@code jni/Application.mk} because the NDK does not have headers for all levels. In this case, the actual level is shifted downwards. The {@code APP_MIN_PLATFORM_LEVEL} is specified by the {@code android:minSdkVersion} in your application's manifest. (Issue 39752)
  • Added the {@code android_getCpuIdArm()} and {@code android_setCpuArm()} methods to {@code cpu-features.c}. This addition enables easier retrieval of the ARM CPUID information. (Issue 53689)
  • Modified {@code ndk-build} to use GCC 4.7's {@code as/ld} for Clang compiling.

    Note: In GCC 4.7, {@code monotonic_clock} and {@code is_monotonic} have been renamed to {@code steady_clock} and {@code is_steady}, respectively.

  • Added the following new warnings to the {@code ndk-build} script:
    • Added warnings if {@code LOCAL_LDLIBS/LDFLAGS} are used in static library modules.
    • Added a warning if a configuration has no module to build.
    • Added a warning for non-system libraries being used in {@code LOCAL_LDLIBS/LDFLAGS} of a shared library or executable modules.
  • Updated build scripts, so that if {@code APP_MODULES} is not defined and only static libraries are listed in {@code Android.mk}, the script force-builds all of them. (Issue 53502)
  • Updated {@code ndk-build} to support absolute paths in {@code LOCAL_SRC_FILES}.
  • Removed the {@code *-gdbtui} executables, which are duplicates of the {@code *-gdb} executables with the {@code -tui} option enabled.
  • Updated the build scripts to warn you when the Edison Design Group (EDG) compiler front-end turns {@code _STLP_HAS_INCLUDE_NEXT} back on. (Issue 53646)
  • Added the environment variable {@code NDK_LIBS_OUT} to allow overriding of the path for {@code libraries/gdbserver} from the default {@code $PROJECT/libs}. For more information, see {@code OVERVIEW.html}.
  • Changed ndk-build script defaults to compile code with format string protection {@code -Wformat -Werror=format-security}. You may set {@code LOCAL_DISABLE_FORMAT_STRING_CHECKS=true} to disable it. For more information, see {@code ANDROID-MK.html}
  • Added STL pretty-print support in {@code ndk-gdb-py}. For more information, see {@code NDK-GDB.html}.
  • Added tests based on the googletest frameworks.
  • Added a notification to the toolchain build script that warns you if the current shell is not {@code bash}.

Android NDK, Revision 8e (March 2013)

Important changes:
  • Added 64-bit host toolchain set (package name suffix {@code *-x86_64.*}). For more information, see {@code CHANGES.HTML} and {@code NDK-BUILD.html}.
  • Added Clang 3.2 compiler. GCC 4.6 is still the default. For information on using the Clang compiler, see {@code CHANGES.HTML}.
  • Added static code analyzer for Linux/MacOSX hosts. For information on using the analyzer, see {@code CHANGES.HTML}.
  • Added MCLinker for Linux/MacOSX hosts as an experimental feature. The {@code ld.gold} linker is the default where available, so you must explicitly enable it. For more information, see {@code CHANGES.HTML}.
  • Updated ndk-build to use topological sort for module dependencies, which means the build automatically sorts out the order of libraries specified in {@code LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES}, {@code LOCAL_WHOLE_STATIC_LIBRARIES} and {@code LOCAL_SHARED_LIBRARIES}. For more information, see {@code CHANGES.HTML}. (Issue 39378)
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed build script to build all toolchains in {@code -O2}. Toolchains in previous releases were incorrectly built without optimization.
  • Fixed build script which unconditionally builds Clang/llvm for MacOSX in 64-bit.
  • Fixed GCC 4.6/4.7 internal compiler error: {@code gen_thumb_movhi_clobber at config/arm/arm.md:5832}. (Issue 52732)
  • Fixed build problem where GCC/ARM 4.6/4.7 fails to link code using 64-bit atomic built-in functions. (Issue 41297)
  • Fixed GCC 4.7 linker DIV usage mismatch errors. (Sourceware Issue)
  • Fixed GCC 4.7 internal compiler error {@code build_data_member_initialization, at cp/semantics.c:5790}.
  • Fixed GCC 4.7 internal compiler error {@code redirect_eh_edge_1, at tree-eh.c:2214}. (Issue 52909)
  • Fixed a GCC 4.7 segfault. (GCC Issue)
  • Fixed {@code <chrono>} clock resolution and enabled {@code steady_clock}. (Issue 39680)
  • Fixed toolchain to enable {@code _GLIBCXX_HAS_GTHREADS} for GCC 4.7 libstdc++. (Issue 41770, Issue 41859)
  • Fixed problem with the X86 MXX/SSE code failing to link due to missing {@code posix_memalign}. (Change 51872)
  • Fixed GCC4.7/X86 segmentation fault in {@code i386.c}, function {@code distance_non_agu_define_in_bb()}. (Change 50383)
  • Fixed GCC4.7/X86 to restore earlier {@code cmov} behavior. (GCC Issue)
  • Fixed handling NULL return value of {@code setlocale()} in libstdc++/GCC4.7. (Issue 46718)
  • Fixed {@code ld.gold} runtime undefined reference to {@code __exidx_start} and {@code __exidx_start_end}. (Change 52134)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 internal compiler error when using Eigen library. (Issue 41246)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 internal compiler error including {@code <chrono>} in C++11 mode. (Issue 39600)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 internal compiler error when generating object code for a method call to a uniform initialized {@code rvalue}. (Issue 41387)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1/X86 stack realignment. (Change 52154)
  • Fixed problem with GNU Debugger (GDB) SIGILL when debugging on Android 4.1.2. (Issue 40941)
  • Fixed problem where GDB cannot set {@code source:line} breakpoints when symbols contain long, indirect file paths. (Issue 42448)
  • Fixed GDB {@code read_program_header} for MIPS PIE executables. (Change 49592)
  • Fixed {@code STLport} segmentation fault in {@code uncaught_exception()}. (Change 50236)
  • Fixed {@code STLport} bus error in exception handling due to unaligned access of {@code DW_EH_PE_udata2}, {@code DW_EH_PE_udata4}, and {@code DW_EH_PE_udata8}.
  • Fixed Gabi++ infinite recursion problem with {@code nothrow new[]} operator. (Issue 52833)
  • Fixed Gabi++ wrong offset to exception handler pointer. (Change 53446)
  • Removed Gabi++ redundant free on exception object (Change 53447)
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed NDK headers:
    • Removed redundant definitions of {@code size_t}, {@code ssize_t}, and {@code ptrdiff_t}.
    • Fixed MIPS and ARM {@code fenv.h} header.
    • Fixed {@code stddef.h} to not redefine {@code offsetof} since it already exists in the toolchain.
    • Fixed {@code elf.h} to contain {@code Elf32_auxv_t} and {@code Elf64_auxv_t}. (Issue 38441)
    • Fixed the {@code #ifdef} C++ definitions in the {@code OpenSLES_AndroidConfiguration.h} header file. (Issue 53163)
  • Fixed {@code STLport} to abort after out of memory error instead of silently exiting.
  • Fixed system and Gabi++ headers to be able to compile with API level 8 and lower.
  • Fixed {@code cpufeatures} to not parse {@code /proc/self/auxv}. (Issue 43055)
  • Fixed {@code ld.gold} to not depend on host libstdc++ and on Windows platforms, to not depend on the {@code libgcc_sjlj_1.dll} library.
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 which emits inconsistent register list in {@code .vsave} and fails assembler. (Change 49930)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 to be able to compile libgabi++ and pass the {@code test-stlport} tests for MIPS build targets. (Change 51961)
  • Fixed Clang 3.1 to only enable exception by default for C++, not for C.
  • Fixed several issues in Clang 3.1 to pass most GNU exception tests.
  • Fixed scripts {@code clang} and {@code clang++} in standalone NDK compiler to detect {@code -cc1} and to not specify {@code -target} when found.
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build} to observe {@code NDK_APP_OUT} set in {@code Application.mk}.
  • Fixed X86 {@code libc.so} and {@code lib.a} which were missing the {@code sigsetjmp} and {@code siglongjmp} functions already declared in {@code setjmp.h}. (Issue 19851)
  • Patched GCC 4.4.3/4.6/4.7 libstdc++ to work with Clang in C++ 11. (Clang Issue)
  • Fixed cygwin path in argument passed to {@code HOST_AWK}.
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build} script warning in windows when running from project's JNI directory. (Issue 40192)
  • Fixed problem where the {@code ndk-build} script does not build if makefile has trailing whitespace in the {@code LOCAL_PATH} definition. (Issue 42841)
Other changes:
  • Enabled threading support in GCC/MIPS toolchain.
  • Updated GCC exception handling helpers {@code __cxa_begin_cleanup} and {@code __cxa_type_match} to have default visibility from the previous hidden visibility in GNU libstdc++. For more information, see {@code CHANGES.HTML}.
  • Updated build scripts so that Gabi++ and STLport static libraries are now built with hidden visibility except for exception handling helpers.
  • Updated build so that {@code STLport} is built for ARM in Thumb mode.
  • Added support for {@code std::set_new_handler} in Gabi++. (Issue 52805)
  • Enabled {@code FUTEX} system call in GNU libstdc++.
  • Updated {@code ndk-build} so that it no longer copies prebuilt static library to a project's {@code obj/local/<abi>/} directory. (Issue 40302)
  • Removed {@code __ARM_ARCH_5*__} from ARM {@code toolchains/*/setup.mk} script. (Issue 21132)
  • Built additional GNU libstdc++ libraries in thumb for ARM.
  • Enabled MIPS floating-point {@code madd/msub/nmadd/nmsub/recip/rsqrt} instructions with 32-bit FPU.
  • Enabled graphite loop optimizer in GCC 4.6 and 4.7 to allow more optimizations: {@code -fgraphite}, {@code -fgraphite-identity}, {@code -floop-block}, {@code -floop-flatten}, {@code -floop-interchange}, {@code -floop-strip-mine}, {@code -floop-parallelize-all}, and {@code -ftree-loop-linear}. (info)
  • Enabled {@code polly} for Clang 3.1 on Linux and Max OS X 32-bit hosts which analyzes and optimizes memory access. (info)
  • Enabled {@code -flto} in GCC 4.7, 4.6, Clang 3.2 and Clang 3.1 on linux (Clang LTO via LLVMgold.so). MIPS compiler targets are not supported because {@code ld.gold} is not available.
  • Enabled {@code --plugin} and {@code --plugin-opt} for {@code ld.gold} in GCC 4.6/4.7.
  • Enabled {@code --text-reorder} for {@code ld.gold} in GCC 4.7.
  • Configured GNU libstdc++ with {@code _GLIBCXX_USE_C99_MATH} which undefines the {@code isinf} script in the bionic header. For more information, see {@code CHANGES.html}.
  • Added {@code APP_LDFLAGS} to the build scripts. For more information, see {@code ANDROID-MK.html}.
  • Updated build scripts to allow {@code NDK_LOG=0} to disable the {@code NDK_LOG}.
  • Updated build scripts to allow {@code NDK_HOST_32BIT=0} to disable the host developer environment 32-bit toolchain.
  • Changed the default GCC/X86 flags {@code -march=} and {@code -mtune=} from {@code pentiumpro} and {@code generic} to {@code i686} and {@code atom}.
  • Enhanced toolchain build scripts:
    • Fixed a race condition in {@code build-gcc.sh} for the {@code mingw} build type which was preventing a significant amount of parallel build processing.
    • Updated {@code build-gabi++.sh} and {@code build-stlport.sh} so they can now run from the NDK package. (Issue 52835)
    • Fixed {@code run-tests.sh} in the {@code MSys} utilities collection.
    • Improved 64-bit host toolchain and Canadian Cross build support.
    • Updated {@code build-mingw64-toolchain.sh} script to more recent version.
    • Added option to build {@code libgnustl_static.a} and {@code stlport_static.a} without hidden visibility.

Android NDK, Revision 8d (December 2012)

Important changes:
  • Added the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.7 compiler to the NDK. The GCC 4.6 compiler is still the default, so you must to explicitly enable the new version as follows:
    • For {@code ndk-build}, export the {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.7} variable or add it to {@code Application.mk}.
    • For standalone builds, add the {@code --toolchain=} option to {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh}, for example: 
      --toolchain=arm-linux-androideabi-4.7

    Note: This feature is experimental. Please try it and report any issues.

  • Added {@code stlport} exception support via gabi++. Note that the new gabi++ depends on {@code dlopen} and related code, meaning that:
    • You can no longer build a static executable using the {@code -static} option or include {@code libstlport_static.a} using {@code APP_STL := stlport_static}. (You can still use the {@code -static} option with a standalone toolchain.) Compiling a dynamic executable using {@code include $(BUILD_EXECUTABLE)} continues to work because the compiler automatically adds the {@code -ldl} option.
    • If your project links using {@code -nostdlib} and {-Wl,--no-undefined}, you must manually include the {@code -ldl} option.
    For more information, see {@code CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html}.

    Note: This feature is experimental and works better with the GCC 4.6/4.7 compilers than with GCC 4.4.3 or Clang 3.1. Please try it and report any issues.

  • Added a {@code -mstack-protector-guard=} option for x86 to choose between a global default path which is compatible with older Android C library (bionic) and a new tls path (%gs:20) for {@code -fstack-protector}, {@code -fstack-protector-all} and {@code -fstack-protector-strong} using the GCC 4.6 and higher compilers.

    Note: The {@code -mstack-protector-guard} setting itself does not enable any {@code -fstack-protector*} options.

  • Added {@code android_setCpu()} function to {@code sources/android/cpufeatures/cpu-features.c} for use when auto-detection via {@code /proc} is not possible in Android 4.1 and higher. (Chromium Issue 164154)
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed unnecessary rebuild of object files when using the {@code ndk-build} script. (Issue 39810)
  • Fixed a linker failure with the NDK 8c release for Mac OS X 10.6.x that produced the following error: 
    dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: _memmem
Referenced from: ...../arm-linux-androideabi/bin/ld
Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    This problem was caused by building on Mac OS X 10.7, which produced binaries that were not compatible with Mac OS 10.6.x and the NDK.
  • Removed the {@code -x c++} options from the Clang++ standalone build script. (Issue 39089)
  • Fixed issues using the {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang3.1} option in Cygwin. (Issue 39585)
  • Fixed the {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} script to allow generation of a standalone toolchain using the Cygwin or MinGW environments. The resulting toolchain can be used in Cygwin, MingGW or CMD.exe environments. (Issue 39915, Issue 39585)
  • Added missing {@code SL_IID_ANDROIDBUFFERQUEUESOURCE} option in android-14 builds for ARM and X86. (Issue 40625)
  • Fixed x86 CPU detection for the {@code ANDROID_CPU_X86_FEATURE_MOVBE} feature. (Issue 39317)
  • Fixed an issue preventing the Standard Template Library (STL) from using C++ sources that do not have a {@code .cpp} file extension.
  • Fixed GCC 4.6 ARM internal compiler error at reload1.c:1061. (Issue 20862)
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3 ARM internal compiler error at emit-rtl.c:1954. (Issue 22336)
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3 ARM internal compiler error at postreload.c:396. (Issue 22345)
  • Fixed problem with GCC 4.6/4.7 skipping lambda functions. (Issue 35933)
Other bug fixes:
  • NDK header file fixes:
    • Fixed {@code __WINT_TYPE__} and {@code wint_t} to be the same type.
    • Corrected typo in {@code android/bitmap.h}. (Issue 15134)
    • Corrected typo in {@code errno.h}.
    • Added check for the presence of {@code __STDC_VERSION__} in {@code sys/cdefs.h}. (Issue 14627)
    • Reorganized headers in {@code byteswap.h} and {@code dirent.h}.
    • Fixed {@code limits.h} to include {@code page.h} which provides {@code PAGE_SIZE} settings. (Issue 39983)
    • Fixed return type of {@code glGetAttribLocation()} and {@code glGetUniformLocation()} from {@code int} to {@code GLint}.
    • Fixed {@code __BYTE_ORDER} constant for x86 builds. (Issue 39824)
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build} script to not overwrite {@code -Os} with {@code -O2} for ARM builds.
  • Fixed build scripts to allow overwriting of {@code HOST_AWK}, {@code HOST_SED}, and {@code HOST_MAKE} settings.
  • Fixed issue for {@code ld.gold} on {@code fsck_msdos} builds linking objects built by the Intel C/C++ compiler (ICC).
  • Fixed ARM EHABI support in Clang to conform to specifications.
  • Fixed GNU Debugger (GDB) to shorten the time spent on walking the target's link map during {@code solib} events. (Issue 38402)
  • Fixed missing {@code libgcc.a} file when linking shared libraries.
Other changes:
  • Backported 64-bit built-in atomic functions for ARM to GCC 4.6.
  • Added documentation for audio output latency, along with other documentation and fixes.
  • Fixed debug builds with Clang so that non-void functions now raise a {@code SIGILL} signal for paths without a return statement.
  • Updated {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} to accept the suffix {@code -clang3.1} which is equivalent to adding {@code --llvm-version=3.1} to the GCC 4.6 toolchain.
  • Updated GCC and Clang bug report URL to: http://source.android.com/source/report-bug s.html
  • Added ARM ELF support to {@code llvm-objdump}.
  • Suppressed treating c input as c++ warning for Clang builds.
  • Updated build so that only the 32-bit version of {@code libiberty.a} is built and placed in {@code lib32/}.

Android NDK, Revision 8c (November 2012)

Important changes:
  • Added the Clang 3.1 compiler to the NDK. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.6 is still the default, so you must explicitly enable the Clang compiler option as follows:
    • For {@code ndk-build}, export {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=clang3.1} or add this environment variable setting to {@code Application.mk}.
    • For standalone builds, add {@code --llvm-version=3.1} to {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} and replace {@code CC} and {@code CXX} in your makefile with {@code <tool-path>/bin/clang} and {@code <tool-path>/bin/clang++}. See {@code STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html} for details.

    Note: This feature is experimental. Please try it and report any issues.

  • Added Gold linker {@code ld.gold} for the Windows toolchain. Gold linker is also the default for ARM and X86 on all hosts. You may override it to use the {@code ld.bfd} linker by adding {@code LOCAL_LDFLAGS += -fuse-ld=bfd} to {@code Android.mk}, or by passing {@code -fuse-ld=bfd} to the g++/clang++ command line that does the linking.
  • Added checks for spaces in the NDK path to the {@code ndk-build[.cmd]} and {@code ndk-gdb} scripts, to prevent build errors that are difficult to diagnose.
  • Made the following changes to API level handling:
    • Modified build logic so that projects that specify {@code android-10} through {@code android-13} in {@code APP_PLATFORM}, {@code project.properties} or {@code default.properties} link against {@code android-9} instead of {@code android-14}.
    • Updated build so that executables using android-16 (Jelly Bean) or higher are compiled with the {@code -fPIE} option for position-independent executables (PIE). A new {@code APP_PIE} option allows you to control this behavior. See {@code APPLICATION-MK.html} for details.

      Note: All API levels above 14 still link against {@code platforms/android-14} and no new {@code platforms/android-N} have been added.

    • Modified {@code ndk-build} to provide warnings if the adjusted API level is larger than {@code android:minSdkVersion} in the project's {@code AndroidManifest.xml}.
  • Updated the {@code cpu-features} helper library to include more ARM-specific features. See {@code sources/android/cpufeatures/cpu-features.h} for details.
  • Modified the long double on the X86 platform to be 8 bytes. This data type is now the same size as a double, but is still treated as a distinct type.
  • Updated build for {@code APP_ABI=armeabi-v7a}:
    • Modified this build type to pass the {@code -march=armv7-a} parameter to the linker. This change ensures that v7-specific libraries and {@code crt*.o} are linked correctly.
    • Added {@code -mfpu=vfpv3-d16} to {@code ndk-build} instead of the {@code -mfpu=vfp} option used in previous releases.
Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed an issue where running {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} with root privileges resulted in the stand alone tool chain being inaccessible to some users. (Issue 35279)
    • All files and executables in the NDK release package are set to have read and execute permissions for all.
    • The ownership/group of {@code libstdc++.a} is now preserved when copied.
  • Removed redundant {@code \r} from Windows prebuilt {@code echo.exe}. The redundant {@code \r} caused {@code gdb.setup} to fail in the GNU Debugger (GDB) because it incorrectly became part of the path. (Issue 36054)
  • Fixed Windows parallel builds that sometimes failed due to timing issues in the {@code host-mkdir} implementation. (Issue 25875)
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3 GNU {@code libstdc++} to not merge {@code typeinfo} names by default. For more details, see {@code toolchain repo gcc/gcc-4.4.3/libstdc++-v3/libsupc++/typeinfo}. (Issue 22165)
  • Fixed problem on {@code null} context in GCC 4.6 {@code cp/mangle.c::write_unscoped_name}, where GCC may crash when the context is {@code null} and dereferenced in {@code TREE_CODE}.
  • Fixed GCC 4.4.3 crashes on ARM NEON-specific type definitions for floats. (Issue 34613)
  • Fixed the {@code STLport} internal {@code _IteWrapper::operator*()} implementation where a stale stack location holding the dereferenced value was returned and caused runtime crashes. (Issue 38630)
  • ARM-specific fixes:
    • Fixed ARM GCC 4.4.3/4.6 {@code g++} to not warn that the mangling of <va_list> was changed in GCC 4.4. The workaround using the {@code -Wno-psabi} switch to avoid this warning is no longer required.
    • Fixed an issue when a project with {@code .arm} or {@code .neon} suffixes in {@code LOCAL_SRC_FILES} also used {@code APP_STL}. With {@code APP_STL}, the {@code ndk-build} script searches for C++ files in {@code LOCAL_SRC_FILES} before adding STL {@code header/lib} paths to compilation. Modified {@code ndk-build} to filter out {@code .arm} and {@code .neon} suffixes before the search, otherwise items in {@code LOCAL_SRC_FILES} like {@code myfile.cpp.arm.neon} won't be compiled as C++ code.
    • Fixed {@code binutils-2.21/ld.bfd} to be capable of linking object from older binutils without {@code tag_FP_arch}, which was producing assertion fail error messages in GNU Binutils. (Issue 35209)
    • Removed Unknown EABI object attribute 44 warning when {@code binutils-2.19/ld} links prebuilt object by newer {@code binutils-2.21}
    • Fixed an issue in GNU {@code stdc++} compilation with both {@code -mthumb} and {@code -march=armv7-a}, by modifying {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} to populate {@code headers/libs} in sub-directory {@code armv7-a/thumb}. (Issue 35616)
    • Fixed unresolvable R_ARM_THM_CALL relocation error. (Issue 35342)
    • Fixed internal compiler error at {@code reload1.c:3633}, caused by the ARM back-end expecting the wrong operand type when sign-extend from {@code char}. (GCC Issue 50099)
    • Fixed internal compiler error with negative shift amount. (GCC Issue)
  • Fixed {@code -fstack-protector} for X86, which is also the default for the {@code ndk-build} x86 ABI target.
  • MIPS-specific fixes:
    • Fixed {@code STLport} endian-ness by setting {@code _STLP_LITTLE_ENDIAN} to 1 when compiling MIPS {@code libstlport_*}.
    • Fixed GCC {@code __builtin_unreachable} issue when compiling LLVM. (GCC Issue 54369)
    • Backported fix for {@code cc1} compile process consuming 100% CPU. (GCC Issue 50380)
  • GNU Debugger-specific fixes:
    • Disabled Python support in gdb-7.x at build, otherwise the gdb-7.x configure function may pick up whatever Python version is available on the host and build {@code gdb} with a hard-wired dependency on a specific version of Python. (Issue 36120)
    • Fixed {@code ndk-gdb} when {@code APP_ABI} contains {@code all} and matchs none of the known architectures. (Issue 35392)
    • Fixed Windows pathname support, by keeping the {@code :} character if it looks like it could be part of a Windows path starting with a drive letter. (GDB Issue 12843)
    • Fixed adding of hardware breakpoint support for ARM in {@code gdbserver}. (GDB Issue)
    • Added fix to only read the current {@code solibs} when the linker is consistent. This change speeds up {@code solib} event handling. (Issue 37677)
    • Added fix to make repeated attempts to find {@code solib} breakpoints. GDB now retries {@code enable_break()} during every call to {@code svr4_current_sos()} until it succeeds. (Change 43563)
    • Fixed an issue where {@code gdb} would not stop on breakpoints placed in {@code dlopen-ed} libraries. (Issue 34856)
    • Fixed {@code SIGILL} in dynamic linker when calling {@code dlopen()}, on system where {@code /system/bin/linker} is stripped of symbols and {@code rtld_db_dlactivity()} is implemented as {@code Thumb}, due to not preserving {@code LSB} of {@code sym_addr}. (Issue 37147)
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed NDK headers:
    • Fixed {@code arch-mips/include/asm/*} code that was incorrectly removed from original kernel. (Change 43335)
    • Replaced struct member data {@code __unused} with {@code __linux_unused} in {@code linux/sysctl.h} and {@code linux/icmp.h} to avoid conflict with {@code #define __unused} in {@code sys/cdefs.h}.
    • Fixed {@code fenv.h} for enclosed C functions with {@code __BEGIN_DECLS} and {@code __END_DECLS}.
    • Removed unimplemented functions in {@code malloc.h}.
    • Fixed {@code stdint.h} defintion of {@code uint64_t} for ANSI compilers. (Issue 1952)
    • Fixed preprocessor macros in {@code <arch>/include/machine/*}.
    • Replaced {@code link.h} for MIPS with new version supporting all platforms.
    • Removed {@code linux-unistd.h}
    • Move GLibc-specific macros {@code LONG_LONG_MIN}, {@code LONG_LONG_MAX} and {@code ULONG_LONG_MAX} from {@code <pthread.h>} to {@code <limits.h>}.
  • Fixed a buffer overflow in {@code ndk-stack-parser}.
  • Fixed {@code _STLP_USE_EXCEPTIONS}, when not defined, to omit all declarations and uses of {@code __Named_exception}. Compiling and use of {@code __Named_exception} settings only occurs when {@code STLport} is allowed to use exceptions.
  • Fixed building of Linux-only NDK packages without also building Windows code. Use the following settings to perform this type of build: 
    ./build/tools/make-release.sh --force --systems=linux-x86
  • Fixed {@code libc.so} so it does not export {@code atexit()} and {@code __do_handler}. These symbols are exported for ARM builds by the system version of the C library to support legacy native libraries. NDK-generated should never reference them directly. Instead, each shared library or executable should embed its own version of these symbols, provided by {@code crtbegin_*.o}.

    If your project is linked with the {@code -nostdlib -Wl,--no-undefined} options, you must provide your own {@code __dso_handle} because {@code crtbegin_so.o} is not linked in this case. The content of {@code __dso_handle} does not matter, as shown in the following example code:

    extern "C" {
  extern void *__dso_handle __attribute__((__visibility__ ("hidden")));
  void *__dso_handle;
}
  • Fixed symbol decoder for ARM used in {@code objdump} for {@code plt} entries to generate a more readable form {@code function@plt}.
  • Removed the following symbols, introduced in GCC 4.6 {@code libgcc.a}, from the X86 platform {@code libc.so} library: {@code __aeabi_idiv0}, {@code __aeabi_ldiv0}, {@code __aeabi_unwind_cpp_pr1}, and {@code __aeabi_unwind_cpp_pr2}.
  • Removed unused {@code .ctors}, {@code .dtors}, and {@code .eh_frame} in MIPS {@code crt*_so.S}.
  • Updated {@code ndk-gdb} so that it only takes the last line of output for {@code ndk-build} {@code DUMP_XXXX}. This change ensures that if {@code Application.mk} or {@code Android.mk} print something with {@code $(info ...)} syntax, it does not get injected into the result of {@code DUMP_XXXX}. (More info)
Other changes:
  • Removed {@code arch-x86} and {@code arch-mips} headers from {@code platforms/android-[3,4,5,8]}. Those headers were incomplete, since both X86 and MIPS ABIs are only supported at API 9 or higher.
  • Simplified c++ include path in standalone packages, as shown below. (Issue 35279) 
    <path>/arm-linux-androideabi/include/c++/4.6.x-google
  to:
<path>/include/c++/4.6/
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build} to recognize more C++ file extensions by default: {@code .cc .cp .cxx .cpp .CPP .c++ .C}. You may still use {@code LOCAL_CPP_EXTENSION} to overwrite these extension settings.
  • Fixed an issue in {@code samples/san-angeles} that caused a black screen or freeze frame on re-launch.
  • Replaced deprecated APIs in NDK samples. (Issue 20017)
    • {@code hello-gl2} from android-5 to android-7
    • {@code native-activity} from android-9 to android-10
    • {@code native-audio} from android-9 to android-10
    • {@code native-plasma} from android-9 to android-10
  • Added new branding for Android executables with a simpler scheme in section {@code .note.android.ident} (defined in {@code crtbegin_static/dynamic.o}) so that debugging tools can act accordingly. The structure member and values are defined as follows: 
    static const struct {
  int32_t namesz;  /* = 8,  sizeof ("Android") */
  int32_t descsz;  /* = 1 * sizeof(int32_t) */
  int32_t type;    /* = 1, ABI_NOTETYPE */
  char name[sizeof "Android"];  /* = "Android" */
  int32_t android_api; /* = 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 14 */
}

    The previous branding options in section {@code .note.ABI-tag} are deprecated.

  • Added a new script {@code run-tests-all.sh} which calls {@code run-tests.sh} and {@code standalone/run.sh} with various conditions. The script {@code run-tests.sh} runs without the {@code --abi} option, and is enhanced to compile most of the tests for all supported ABIs and run on all attached devices

Android NDK, Revision 8b (July 2012)

The main features of this release are a new GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.6 toolchain and GNU Debugger (GDB) 7.3.x which adds debugging support for the Android 4.1 (API Level 16) system image.

Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed {@code LOCAL_SHORT_COMMANDS} issues on Mac OS, Windows Cygwin environments for static libraries. List file generation is faster, and it is not regenerated to avoid repeated project rebuilds.
  • Fixed several issues in {@code ndk-gdb}:
    • Updated tool to pass flags {@code -e}, {@code -d} and {@code -s} to adb more consistently.
    • Updated tool to accept device serial names containing spaces.
    • Updated tool to retrieve {@code /system/bin/link} information, so {@code gdb} on the host can set a breakpoint in {@code __dl_rtld_db_dlactivity} and be aware of linker activity (e.g., rescan {@code solib} symbols when {@code dlopen()} is called).
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build clean} on Windows, which was failing to remove {@code ./libs/*/lib*.so}.
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build.cmd} to return a non-zero {@code ERRORLEVEL} when {@code make} fails.
  • Fixed {@code libc.so} to stop incorrectly exporting the {@code __exidx_start} and {@code __exidx_end} symbols.
  • Fixed {@code SEGV} when unwinding the stack past {@code __libc_init} for ARM and MIPS.
Important changes:
  • Added GCC 4.6 toolchain ({@code binutils} 2.21 with {@code gold} and GDB 7.3.x) to co-exist with the original GCC 4.4.3 toolchain ({@code binutils} 2.19 and GDB 6.6).
    • GCC 4.6 is now the default toolchain. You may set {@code NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.4.3} in {@code Application.mk} to select the original one.
    • Support for the {@code gold} linker is only available for ARM and x86 architectures on Linux and Mac OS hosts. This support is disabled by default. Add {@code LOCAL_LDLIBS += -fuse-ld=gold} in {@code Android.mk} to enable it.
    • Programs compiled with {@code -fPIE} require the new {@code GDB} for debugging, including binaries in Android 4.1 (API Level 16) system images.
    • The {@code binutils} 2.21 {@code ld} tool contains back-ported fixes from version 2.22:
      • Fixed {@code ld --gc-sections}, which incorrectly retains zombie references to external libraries. (more info).
      • Fixed ARM {@code strip} command to preserve the original {@code p_align} and {@code p_flags} in {@code GNU_RELRO} section if they are valid. Without this fix, programs built with {@code -fPIE} could not be debugged. (mor e info)
    • Disabled {@code sincos()} optimization for compatibility with older platforms.
  • Updated build options to enable the Never eXecute (NX) bit and {@code relro}/{@code bind_now} protections by default:
    • Added {@code --noexecstack} to assembler and {@code -z noexecstack} to linker that provides NX protection against buffer overflow attacks by enabling NX bit on stack and heap.
    • Added {@code -z relro} and {@code -z now} to linker for hardening of internal data sections after linking to guard against security vulnerabilities caused by memory corruption. (more info: 1, 2)
    • These features can be disabled using the following options:
      1. Disable NX protection by setting the {@code --execstack} option for the assembler and {@code -z execstack} for the linker.
      2. Disable hardening of internal data by setting the {@code -z norelro} and {@code -z lazy} options for the linker.
      3. Disable these protections in the NDK {@code jni/Android.mk} by setting the following options: 
        LOCAL_DISABLE_NO_EXECUTE=true  # disable "--noexecstack" and "-z noexecstack"
DISABLE_RELRO=true             # disable "-z relro" and "-z now"

      See {@code docs/ANDROID-MK.html} for more details.

  • Added branding for Android executables with the {@code .note.ABI-tag} section (in {@code crtbegin_static/dynamic.o}) so that debugging tools can act accordingly. The structure member and values are defined as follows: 
    static const struct {
  int32_t namesz;  /* = 4,  sizeof ("GNU") */
  int32_t descsz;  /* = 6 * sizeof(int32_t) */
  int32_t type;    /* = 1 */
  char  name[sizeof "GNU"];  /* = "GNU" */
  int32_t os;      /* = 0 */
  int32_t major;   /* = 2 */
  int32_t minor;   /* = 6 */
  int32_t teeny;   /* = 15 */
  int32_t os_variant;  /* = 1 */
  int32_t android_api; /* = 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 14 */
}
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed {@code mips-linux-gnu} relocation truncated to fit {@code R_MIPS_TLS_LDM} issue. (more info)
  • Fixed {@code ld} tool segfaults when using {@code --gc-sections}. (more info)
  • Fixed MIPS {@code GOT_PAGE} counting issue. (more info)
  • Fixed follow warning symbol link for {@code mips_elf_count_got_symbols}.
  • Fixed follow warning symbol link for {@code mips_elf_allocate_lazy_stub}.
  • Moved MIPS {@code .dynamic} to the data segment, so that it is writable.
  • Replaced hard-coded values for symbols with correct segment sizes for MIPS.
  • Removed the {@code -mno-shared} option from the defaults in the MIPS toolchain. The default for Android toolchain is {@code -fPIC} (or {@code -fpic} if supported). If you do not explicitly specify {@code -mshared}, {@code -fpic}, {@code -fPIC}, {@code -fpie}, or {@code -fPIE}, the MIPS compiler adds {@code -mno-shared} that turns off PIC. Fixed compiler not to add {@code -mno-shared} in this case.
  • Fixed wrong package names in samples {@code hello-jni} and {@code two-libs} so that the {@code tests} project underneath it can compile.
Other Changes:
  • Changed locations of binaries:
    • Moved {@code gdbserver} from {@code toolchain/<arch-os-ver>/prebuilt/gdbserver} to {@code prebuilt/android-<arch>/gdbserver/gdbserver}.
    • Renamed x86 toolchain prefix from {@code i686-android-linux-} to {@code i686-linux-android-}.
    • Moved {@code sources/cxx-stl/gnu-libstdc++/include} and {@code lib} to {@code sources/cxx-stl/gnu-libstdc++/4.6} when compiled with GCC 4.6, or {@code sources/cxx-stl/gnu-libstdc++/4.4.3} when compiled with GCC 4.4.3.
    • Moved {@code libbfd.a} and {@code libintl.a} from {@code lib/} to {@code lib32/}.
  • Added and improved various scripts in the rebuild and test NDK toolchain:
    • Added {@code build-mingw64-toolchain.sh} to generate a new Linux-hosted toolchain that generates Win32 and Win64 executables.
    • Improved speed of {@code download-toolchain-sources.sh} by using the {@code clone} command and only using {@code checkout} for the directories that are needed to build the NDK toolchain binaries.
    • Added {@code build-host-gcc.sh} and {@code build-host-gdb.sh} scripts.
    • Added {@code tests/check-release.sh} to check the content of a given NDK installation directory, or an existing NDK package.
    • Rewrote the {@code tests/standalone/run.sh} standalone tests .
  • Removed {@code if_dl.h} header from all platforms and architectures. The {@code AF_LINK} and {@code sockaddr_dl} elements it describes are specific to BSD (i.e., they don't exist in Linux).

Android NDK, Revision 8 (May 2012)

This release of the NDK includes support for MIPS ABI and a few additional fixes.

New features:
  • Added support for the MIPS ABI, which allows you to generate machine code that runs on compatible MIPS-based Android devices. Major features for MIPS include MIPS-specific toolchains, system headers, libraries and debugging support. For more details regarding MIPS support, see {@code docs/CPU-MIPS.html} in the NDK package.

    By default, code is generated for ARM-based devices. You can add {@code mips} to your {@code APP_ABI} definition in your {@code Application.mk} file to build for MIPS platforms. For example, the following line instructs {@code ndk-build} to build your code for three distinct ABIs:

    APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a mips

    Unless you rely on architecture-specific assembly sources, such as ARM assembly code, you should not need to touch your {@code Android.mk} files to build MIPS machine code.

  • You can build a standalone MIPS toolchain using the {@code --arch=mips} option when calling make-standalone-toolchain.sh. See {@code docs/STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html} for more details.

Note: To ensure that your applications are available to users only if their devices are capable of running them, Google Play filters applications based on the instruction set information included in your application ? no action is needed on your part to enable the filtering. Additionally, the Android system itself also checks your application at install time and allows the installation to continue only if the application provides a library that is compiled for the device's CPU architecture.

Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed a typo in GAbi++ implementation where the result of {@code dynamic_cast<D>(b)} of base class object {@code b} to derived class {@code D} is incorrectly adjusted in the opposite direction from the base class. (Issue 28721)
  • Fixed an issue in which {@code make-standalone-toolchain.sh} fails to copy {@code libsupc++.*}.
Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build.cmd} to ensure that {@code ndk-build.cmd} works correctly even if the user has redefined the {@code SHELL} environment variable, which may be changed when installing a variety of development tools in Windows environments.

Android NDK, Revision 7c (April 2012)

This release of the NDK includes an important fix for Tegra2-based devices, and a few additional fixes and improvements:

Important bug fixes:
  • Fixed GNU STL armeabi-v7a binaries to not crash on non-NEON devices. The files provided with NDK r7b were not configured properly, resulting in crashes on Tegra2-based devices and others when trying to use certain floating-point functions (e.g., {@code cosf}, {@code sinf}, {@code expf}).
Important changes:
  • Added support for custom output directories through the {@code NDK_OUT} environment variable. When defined, this variable is used to store all intermediate generated files, instead of {@code $PROJECT_PATH/obj}. The variable is also recognized by {@code ndk-gdb}.
  • Added support for building modules with hundreds or even thousands of source files by defining {@code LOCAL_SHORT_COMMANDS} to {@code true} in your {@code Android.mk}.

    This change forces the NDK build system to put most linker or archiver options into list files, as a work-around for command-line length limitations. See {@code docs/ANDROID-MK.html} for details.

Other bug fixes:
  • Fixed {@code android_getCpuCount()} implementation in the {@code cpufeatures} helper library. On certain devices, where cores are enabled dynamically by the system, the previous implementation would report the total number of active cores the first time the function was called, rather than the total number of physically available cores.

Android NDK, Revision 7b (February 2012)

This release of the NDK includes fixes for native Windows builds, Cygwin and many other improvements:

Important bug fixes:
  • Updated {@code sys/atomics.h} to avoid correctness issues on some multi-core ARM-based devices. Rebuild your unmodified sources with this version of the NDK and this problem should be completely eliminated. For more details, read {@code docs/ANDROID-ATOMICS.html}.
  • Reverted to {@code binutils} 2.19 to fix debugging issues that appeared in NDK r7 (which switched to {@code binutils} 2.20.1).
  • Fixed {@code ndk-build} on 32-bit Linux. A packaging error put a 64-bit version of the {@code awk} executable under {@code prebuilt/linux-x86/bin} in NDK r7.
  • Fixed native Windows build ({@code ndk-build.cmd}). Other build modes were not affected. The fixes include:
    • Removed an infinite loop / stack overflow bug that happened when trying to call {@code ndk-build.cmd} from a directory that was not the top of your project path (e.g., in any sub-directory of it).
    • Fixed a problem where the auto-generated dependency files were ignored. This meant that updating a header didn't trigger recompilation of sources that included it.
    • Fixed a problem where special characters in files or paths, other than spaces and quotes, were not correctly handled.
  • Fixed the standalone toolchain to generate proper binaries when using {@code -lstdc++} (i.e., linking against the GNU {@code libstdc++} C++ runtime). You should use {@code -lgnustl_shared} if you want to link against the shared library version or {@code -lstdc++} for the static version.

    See {@code docs/STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html} for more details about this fix.

  • Fixed {@code gnustl_shared} on Cygwin. The linker complained that it couldn't find {@code libsupc++.a} even though the file was at the right location.
  • Fixed Cygwin C++ link when not using any specific C++ runtime through {@code APP_STL}.
Other changes:
  • When your application uses the GNU {@code libstdc++} runtime, the compiler will no longer forcibly enable exceptions and RTTI. This change results in smaller code.

    If you need these features, you must do one of the following:

    • Enable exceptions and/or RTTI explicitly in your modules or {@code Application.mk}. (recommended)
    • Define {@code APP_GNUSTL_FORCE_CPP_FEATURES} to {@code 'exceptions'}, {@code 'rtti'} or both in your {@code Application.mk}. See {@code docs/APPLICATION-MK.html} for more details.
  • {@code ndk-gdb} now works properly when your application has private services running in independent processes. It debugs the main application process, instead of the first process listed by {@code ps}, which is usually a service process.
  • Fixed a rare bug where NDK r7 would fail to honor the {@code LOCAL_ARM_MODE} value and always compile certain source files (but not all) to 32-bit instructions.
  • {@code STLport}: Refresh the sources to match the Android platform version. This update fixes a few minor bugs:
    • Fixed instantiation of an incomplete type
    • Fixed minor "==" versus "=" typo
    • Used {@code memmove} instead of {@code memcpy} in {@code string::assign}
    • Added better handling of {@code IsNANorINF}, {@code IsINF}, {@code IsNegNAN}, etc.

    For complete details, see the commit log.

  • {@code STLport}: Removed 5 unnecessary static initializers from the library.
  • The GNU libstdc++ libraries for armeabi-v7a were mistakenly compiled for armeabi instead. This change had no impact on correctness, but using the right ABI should provide slightly better performance.
  • The {@code cpu-features} helper library was updated to report three optional x86 CPU features ({@code SSSE3}, {@code MOVBE} and {@code POPCNT}). See {@code docs/CPU-FEATURES.html} for more details.
  • {@code docs/NDK-BUILD.html} was updated to mention {@code NDK_APPLICATION_MK} instead of {@code NDK_APP_APPLICATION_MK} to select a custom {@code Application.mk} file.
  • Cygwin: {@code ndk-build} no longer creates an empty "NUL" file in the current directory when invoked.
  • Cygwin: Added better automatic dependency detection. In the previous version, it didn't work properly in the following cases:
    • When the Cygwin drive prefix was not {@code /cygdrive}.
    • When using drive-less mounts, for example, when Cygwin would translate {@code /home} to {@code \\server\subdir} instead of {@code C:\Some\Dir}.
  • Cygwin: {@code ndk-build} does not try to use the native Windows tools under {@code $NDK/prebuilt/windows/bin} with certain versions of Cygwin and/or GNU Make.

Android NDK, Revision 7 (November 2011)

This release of the NDK includes new features to support the Android 4.0 platform as well as many other additions and improvements:

New features
  • Added official NDK APIs for Android 4.0 (API level 14), which adds the following native features to the platform:
    • Added native multimedia API based on the Khronos Group OpenMAX AL? 1.0.1 standard. The new <OMXAL/OpenMAXAL.h> and <OMXAL/OpenMAXAL_Android.h> headers allow applications targeting API level 14 to perform multimedia output directly from native code by using a new Android-specific buffer queue interface. For more details, see docs/openmaxal/index.html and http://www.khronos.org/openmax/.
    • Updated the native audio API based on the Khronos Group OpenSL ES 1.0.1? standard. With API Level 14, you can now decode compressed audio (e.g. MP3, AAC, Vorbis) to PCM. For more details, see docs/opensles/index.html and http://www.khronos.org/opensles/.
  • Added CCache support. To speed up large rebuilds, define the NDK_CCACHE environment variable to ccache (or the path to your ccache binary). When declared, the NDK build system automatically uses CCache when compiling any source file. For example: 
    export NDK_CCACHE=ccache

    Note: CCache is not included in the NDK release so you must have it installed prior to using it. For more information about CCache, see http://ccache.samba.org.

  • Added support for setting APP_ABI to all to indicate that you want to build your NDK modules for all the ABIs supported by your given NDK release. This means that either one of the following two lines in your Application.mk are equivalent with this release: 
    APP_ABI := all
APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a x86

    This also works if you define APP_ABI when calling ndk-build from the command-line, which is a quick way to check that your project builds for all supported ABIs without changing the project's Application.mk file. For example:

    ndk-build APP_ABI=all
  • Added a LOCAL_CPP_FEATURES variable in Android.mk that allows you to declare which C++ features (RTTI or Exceptions) your module uses. This ensures that the final linking works correctly if you have prebuilt modules that depend on these features. See docs/ANDROID-MK.html and docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html for more details.
  • Shortened paths to source and object files that are used in build commands. When invoking $NDK/ndk-build from your project path, the paths to the source, object, and binary files that are passed to the build commands are significantly shorter now, because they are passed relative to the current directory. This is useful when building projects with a lot of source files, to avoid limits on the maximum command line length supported by your host operating system. The behavior is unchanged if you invoke ndk-build from a sub-directory of your project tree, or if you define NDK_PROJECT_PATH to point to a specific directory.
Experimental features
You can now build your NDK source files on Windows without Cygwin by calling the ndk-build.cmd script from the command line from your project path. The script takes exactly the same arguments as the original ndk-build script. The Windows NDK package comes with its own prebuilt binaries for GNU Make, Awk and other tools required by the build. You should not need to install anything else to get a working build system.

Important: ndk-gdb does not work on Windows, so you still need Cygwin to debug.

This feature is still experimental, so feel free to try it and report issues on the public bug database or public forum. All samples and unit tests shipped with the NDK succesfully compile with this feature.

Important bug fixes
  • Imported shared libraries are now installed by default to the target installation location (libs/<abi>) if APP_MODULES is not defined in your Application.mk. For example, if a top-level module foo imports a module bar, then both libfoo.so and libbar.so are copied to the install location. Previously, only libfoo.so was copied, unless you listed bar in your APP_MODULES too. If you define APP_MODULES explicitly, the behavior is unchanged.
  • ndk-gdb now works correctly for activities with multiple categories in their MAIN intent filters.
  • Static library imports are now properly transitive. For example, if a top-level module foo imports static library bar that imports static library zoo, the libfoo.so will now be linked against both libbar.a and libzoo.a.
Other changes
  • docs/NATIVE-ACTIVITY.HTML: Fixed typo. The minimum API level should be 9, not 8 for native activities.
  • docs/STABLE-APIS.html: Added missing documentation listing EGL as a supported stable API, starting from API level 9.
  • download-toolchain-sources.sh: Updated to download the toolchain sources from android.googlesource.com, which is the new location for the AOSP servers.
  • Added a new C++ support runtime named gabi++. More details about it are available in the updated docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html.
  • Added a new C++ support runtime named gnustl_shared that corresponds to the shared library version of GNU libstdc++ v3 (GPLv3 license). See more info at docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html
  • Added support for RTTI in the STLport C++ runtimes (no support for exceptions).
  • Added support for multiple file extensions in LOCAL_CPP_EXTENSION. For example, to compile both foo.cpp and bar.cxx as C++ sources, declare the following: 
    LOCAL_CPP_EXTENSION := .cpp .cxx
  • Removed many unwanted exported symbols from the link-time shared system libraries provided by the NDK. This ensures that code generated with the standalone toolchain doesn't risk to accidentally depend on a non-stable ABI symbol (e.g. any libgcc.a symbol that changes each time the toolchain used to build the platform is changed)
  • Refreshed the EGL and OpenGLES Khronos headers to support more extensions. Note that this does not change the NDK ABIs for the corresponding libraries, because each extension must be probed at runtime by the client application.

    The extensions that are available depend on your actual device and GPU drivers, not the platform version the device runs on. The header changes simply add new constants and types to make it easier to use the extensions when they have been probed with eglGetProcAddress() or glGetProcAddress(). The following list describes the newly supported extensions:

    GLES 1.x
    • GL_OES_vertex_array_object
    • GL_OES_EGL_image_external
    • GL_APPLE_texture_2D_limited_npot
    • GL_EXT_blend_minmax
    • GL_EXT_discard_framebuffer
    • GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
    • GL_EXT_read_format_bgra
    • GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
    • GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888
    • GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
    • GL_IMG_read_format
    • GL_IMG_texture_compression_pvrtc
    • GL_IMG_texture_env_enhanced_fixed_function
    • GL_IMG_user_clip_plane
    • GL_IMG_multisampled_render_to_texture
    • GL_NV_fence
    • GL_QCOM_driver_control
    • GL_QCOM_extended_get
    • GL_QCOM_extended_get2
    • GL_QCOM_perfmon_global_mode
    • GL_QCOM_writeonly_rendering
    • GL_QCOM_tiled_rendering
    GLES 2.0
    • GL_OES_element_index_uint
    • GL_OES_get_program_binary
    • GL_OES_mapbuffer
    • GL_OES_packed_depth_stencil
    • GL_OES_texture_3D
    • GL_OES_texture_float
    • GL_OES_texture_float_linear
    • GL_OES_texture_half_float_linear
    • GL_OES_texture_npot
    • GL_OES_vertex_array_object
    • GL_OES_EGL_image_external
    • GL_AMD_program_binary_Z400
    • GL_EXT_blend_minmax
    • GL_EXT_discard_framebuffer
    • GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
    • GL_EXT_read_format_bgra
    • GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888
    • GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1
    • GL_IMG_program_binary
    • GL_IMG_read_format
    • GL_IMG_shader_binary
    • GL_IMG_texture_compression_pvrtc
    • GL_IMG_multisampled_render_to_texture
    • GL_NV_coverage_sample
    • GL_NV_depth_nonlinear
    • GL_QCOM_extended_get
    • GL_QCOM_extended_get2
    • GL_QCOM_writeonly_rendering
    • GL_QCOM_tiled_rendering
    EGL
    • EGL_ANDROID_recordable
    • EGL_NV_system_time

Android NDK, Revision 6b (August 2011)

This release of the NDK does not include any new features compared to r6. The r6b release addresses the following issues in the r6 release:

Important bug fixes
  • Fixed the build when APP_ABI="armeabi x86" is used for multi-architecture builds.
  • Fixed the location of prebuilt STLport binaries in the NDK release package. A bug in the packaging script placed them in the wrong location.
  • Fixed atexit() usage in shared libraries with the x86standalone toolchain.
  • Fixed make-standalone-toolchain.sh --arch=x86. It used to fail to copy the proper GNU libstdc++ binaries to the right location.
  • Fixed the standalone toolchain linker warnings about missing the definition and size for the __dso_handle symbol (ARM only).
  • Fixed the inclusion order of $(SYSROOT)/usr/include for x86 builds. See the bug for more information.
  • Fixed the definitions of ptrdiff_t and size_t in x86-specific systems when they are used with the x86 standalone toolchain.

Android NDK, Revision 6 (July 2011)

This release of the NDK includes support for the x86 ABI and other minor changes. For detailed information describing the changes in this release, read the CHANGES.HTML document included in the NDK package.

General notes:
  • Adds support for the x86 ABI, which allows you to generate machine code that runs on compatible x86-based Android devices. Major features for x86 include x86-specific toolchains, system headers, libraries and debugging support. For all of the details regarding x86 support, see docs/CPU-X86.html in the NDK package.

    By default, code is generated for ARM-based devices, but you can add x86 to your APP_ABI definition in your Application.mk file to build for x86 platforms. For example, the following line instructs ndk-build to build your code for three distinct ABIs:

    APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a x86

    Unless you rely on ARM-based assembly sources, you shouldn't need to touch your Android.mk files to build x86 machine code.

  • You can build a standalone x86 toolchain using the --toolchain=x86-4.4.3 option when calling make-standalone-toolchain.sh. See docs/STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html for more details.
  • The new ndk-stack tool lets you translate stack traces in logcat that are generated by native code. The tool translates instruction addresses into a readable format that contains things such as the function, source file, and line number corresponding to each stack frame. For more information and a usage example, see docs/NDK-STACK.html.
Other changes:
arm-eabi-4.4.0, which had been deprecated since NDK r5, has been removed from the NDK distribution.

Android NDK, Revision 5c (June 2011)

This release of the NDK does not include any new features compared to r5b. The r5c release addresses the following problems in the r5b release:

Important bug fixes:
  • ndk-build: Fixed a rare bug that appeared when trying to perform parallel builds of debuggable projects.
  • Fixed a typo that prevented LOCAL_WHOLE_STATIC_LIBRARIES to work correctly with the new toolchain and added documentation for this in docs/ANDROID-MK.html.
  • Fixed a bug where code linked against gnustl_static crashed when run on platform releases older than API level 8 (Android 2.2).
  • ndk-gdb: Fixed a bug that caused a segmentation fault when debugging Android 3.0 or newer devices.
  • <android/input.h>: Two functions that were introduced in API level 9 (Android 2.3) were incorrect and are fixed. While this breaks the source API, the binary interface to the system is unchanged. The incorrect functions were missing a history_index parameter, and the correct definitions are shown below: 
    float AMotionEvent_getHistoricalRawX(const AInputEvent* motion_event,
                                           size_t pointer_index,
                                           size_t history_index);

float AMotionEvent_getHistoricalRawY(const AInputEvent* motion_event,
                                           size_t pointer_index,
                                           size_t history_index);
  • Updated the C library ARM binary for API level 9 (Android 2.3) to correctly expose at link time new functions that were added in that API level (for example, pthread_rwlock_init).
Minor improvements and fixes:
  • Object files are now always linked in the order they appear in LOCAL_SRC_FILES. This was not the case previously because the files were grouped by source extensions instead.
  • When import-module fails, it now prints the list of directories that were searched. This is useful to check that the NDK_MODULE_PATH definition used by the build system is correct.
  • When import-module succeeds, it now prints the directory where the module was found to the log (visible with NDK_LOG=1).
  • Increased the build speed of debuggable applications when there is a very large number of include directories in the project.
  • ndk-gdb: Better detection of adb shell failures and improved error messages.
  • <pthread.h>: Fixed the definition of PTHREAD_RWLOCK_INITIALIZER for API level 9 (Android 2.3) and higher.
  • Fixed an issue where a module could import itself, resulting in an infinite loop in GNU Make.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the build to fail if LOCAL_ARM_NEON was set to true (typo in build/core/build-binary.mk).
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the compilation of .s assembly files (.S files were okay).

Android NDK, Revision 5b (January 2011)

This release of the NDK does not include any new features compared to r5. The r5b release addresses the following problems in the r5 release:

Android NDK, Revision 5 (December 2010)

This release of the NDK includes many new APIs, most of which are introduced to support the development of games and similar applications that make extensive use of native code. Using the APIs, developers have direct native access to events, audio, graphics and window management, assets, and storage. Developers can also implement the Android application lifecycle in native code with help from the new {@link android.app.NativeActivity} class. For detailed information describing the changes in this release, read the CHANGES.HTML document included in the downloaded NDK package.

General notes:
  • Adds support for native activities, which allows you to implement the Android application lifecycle in native code.
  • Adds native support for the following:
    • Input subsystem (such as the keyboard and touch screen)
    • Access to sensor data (accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, etc).
    • Event loop APIs to wait for things such as input and sensor events.
    • Window and surface subsystem
    • Audio APIs based on the OpenSL ES standard that support playback and recording as well as control over platform audio effects
    • Access to assets packaged in an .apk file.
  • Includes a new toolchain (based on GCC 4.4.3), which generates better code, and can also now be used as a standalone cross-compiler, for people who want to build their stuff with ./configure && make. See docs/STANDALONE-TOOLCHAIN.html for the details. The binaries for GCC 4.4.0 are still provided, but the 4.2.1 binaries were removed.
  • Adds support for prebuilt static and shared libraries (docs/PREBUILTS.html) and module exports and imports to make sharing and reuse of third-party modules much easier (docs/IMPORT-MODULE.html explains why).
  • Provides a default C++ STL implementation (based on STLport) as a helper module. It can be used either as a static or shared library (details and usage examples are in sources/android/stlport/README). Prebuilt binaries for STLport (static or shared) and GNU libstdc++ (static only) are also provided if you choose to compile against those libraries instead of the default C++ STL implementation. C++ Exceptions and RTTI are not supported in the default STL implementation. For more information, see docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.HTML.
  • Includes improvements to the cpufeatures helper library that improves reporting of the CPU type (some devices previously reported ARMv7 CPU when the device really was an ARMv6). We recommend developers that use this library to rebuild their applications then upload to Google Play to benefit from the improvements.
  • Adds an EGL library that lets you create and manage OpenGL ES textures and services.
  • Adds new sample applications, native-plasma and native-activity, to demonstrate how to write a native activity.
  • Includes many bugfixes and other small improvements; see docs/CHANGES.html for a more detailed list of changes.

Android NDK, Revision 4b (June 2010)

NDK r4b notes:

Includes fixes for several issues in the NDK build and debugging scripts — if you are using NDK r4, we recommend downloading the NDK r4b build. For detailed information describing the changes in this release, read the CHANGES.TXT document included in the downloaded NDK package.

General notes:
  • Provides a simplified build system through the new ndk-build build command.
  • Adds support for easy native debugging of generated machine code on production devices through the new ndk-gdb command.
  • Adds a new Android-specific ABI for ARM-based CPU architectures, armeabi-v7a. The new ABI extends the existing armeabi ABI to include these CPU instruction set extensions:
    • Thumb-2 instructions
    • VFP hardware FPU instructions (VFPv3-D16)
    • Optional support for ARM Advanced SIMD (NEON) GCC intrinsics and VFPv3-D32. Supported by devices such as Verizon Droid by Motorola, Google Nexus One, and others.
  • Adds a new cpufeatures static library (with sources) that lets your app detect the host device's CPU features at runtime. Specifically, applications can check for ARMv7-A support, as well as VFPv3-D32 and NEON support, then provide separate code paths as needed.
  • Adds a sample application, hello-neon, that illustrates how to use the cpufeatures library to check CPU features and then provide an optimized code path using NEON instrinsics, if supported by the CPU.
  • Lets you generate machine code for either or both of the instruction sets supported by the NDK. For example, you can build for both ARMv5 and ARMv7-A architectures at the same time and have everything stored to your application's final .apk.
  • To ensure that your applications are available to users only if their devices are capable of running them, Google Play now filters applications based on the instruction set information included in your application — no action is needed on your part to enable the filtering. Additionally, the Android system itself also checks your application at install time and allows the installation to continue only if the application provides a library that is compiled for the device's CPU architecture.
  • Adds support for Android 2.2, including a new stable API for accessing the pixel buffers of {@link android.graphics.Bitmap} objects from native code.

Android NDK, Revision 3 (March 2010)

General notes:
  • Adds OpenGL ES 2.0 native library support.
  • Adds a sample application,hello-gl2, that illustrates the use of OpenGL ES 2.0 vertex and fragment shaders.
  • The toolchain binaries have been refreshed for this release with GCC 4.4.0, which should generate slightly more compact and efficient machine code than the previous one (4.2.1). The NDK also still provides the 4.2.1 binaries, which you can optionally use to build your machine code.

Android NDK, Revision 2 (September 2009)

Originally released as "Android 1.6 NDK, Release 1".

General notes:
  • Adds OpenGL ES 1.1 native library support.
  • Adds a sample application, san-angeles, that renders 3D graphics through the native OpenGL ES APIs, while managing activity lifecycle with a {@link android.opengl.GLSurfaceView} object.

Android NDK, Revision 1 (June 2009)

Originally released as "Android 1.5 NDK, Release 1".

General notes:
  • Includes compiler support (GCC) for ARMv5TE instructions, including Thumb-1 instructions.
  • Includes system headers for stable native APIs, documentation, and sample applications.

System and Software Requirements

The sections below describe the system and software requirements for using the Android NDK, as well as platform compatibility considerations that affect appplications using libraries produced with the NDK.

The Android SDK

Supported operating systems

Required development tools

Android platform compatibility

Installing the NDK

Installing the NDK on your development computer is straightforward and involves extracting the NDK from its download package.

Before you get started make sure that you have downloaded the latest Android SDK and upgraded your applications and environment as needed. The NDK is compatible with older platform versions but not older versions of the SDK tools. Also, take a moment to review the System and Software Requirements for the NDK, if you haven't already.

To install the NDK, first download the appropriate package from the table at the top of this page. Then, follow the procedure for your development platform:

When uncompressed, the NDK files are contained in a directory called android-ndk-<version>. You can rename the NDK directory if necessary and you can move it to any location on your computer. This documentation refers to the NDK directory as <ndk>.

You are now ready to start working with the NDK.

Getting Started with the NDK

Once you've installed the NDK successfully, take a few minutes to read the documentation included in the NDK. You can find the documentation in the <ndk>/docs/ directory. In particular, please read the OVERVIEW.HTML document completely, so that you understand the intent of the NDK and how to use it.

If you used a previous version of the NDK, take a moment to review the list of NDK changes in the CHANGES.HTML document.

Here's the general outline of how you work with the NDK tools:

  1. Place your native sources under <project>/jni/...
  2. Create <project>/jni/Android.mk to describe your native sources to the NDK build system
  3. Optional: Create <project>/jni/Application.mk.
  4. Build your native code by running the 'ndk-build' script from your project's directory. It is located in the top-level NDK directory: 
    cd <project>
<ndk>/ndk-build

    The build tools copy the stripped, shared libraries needed by your application to the proper location in the application's project directory.

  5. Finally, compile your application using the SDK tools in the usual way. The SDK build tools will package the shared libraries in the application's deployable .apk file.

For complete information on all of the steps listed above, please see the documentation included with the NDK package.

Using the NDK

The Android framework provides two ways to use native code:

Contents of the NDK

The NDK contains the APIs, documentation, and sample applications that help you write your native code. Specifically:

The latest release of the NDK supports the following instruction sets:

ARMv5TE machine code will run on all ARM-based Android devices. ARMv7-A will run only on devices such as the Verizon Droid or Google Nexus One that have a compatible CPU. The main difference between the two instruction sets is that ARMv7-A supports hardware FPU, Thumb-2, and NEON instructions. You can target either or both of the instruction sets — ARMv5TE is the default, but switching to ARMv7-A is as easy as adding a single line to the application's Application.mk file, without needing to change anything else in the file. You can also build for both architectures at the same time and have everything stored in the final .apk. Complete information is provided in the CPU-ARCH-ABIS.HTML in the NDK package.

The NDK provides stable headers for libc (the C library), libm (the Math library), OpenGL ES (3D graphics library), the JNI interface, and other libraries, as listed in the Development tools section.

Development tools

The NDK includes a set of cross-toolchains (compilers, linkers, etc.) that can generate native ARM binaries on Linux, OS X, and Windows (with Cygwin) platforms.

It provides a set of system headers for stable native APIs that are guaranteed to be supported in all later releases of the platform:

The NDK also provides a build system that lets you work efficiently with your sources, without having to handle the toolchain/platform/CPU/ABI details. You create very short build files to describe which sources to compile and which Android application will use them — the build system compiles the sources and places the shared libraries directly in your application project.

Important: With the exception of the libraries listed above, native system libraries in the Android platform are not stable and may change in future platform versions. Your applications should only make use of the stable native system libraries provided in this NDK.

Documentation

The NDK package includes a set of documentation that describes the capabilities of the NDK and how to use it to create shared libraries for your Android applications. In this release, the documentation is provided only in the downloadable NDK package. You can find the documentation in the <ndk>/docs/ directory. Included are these files (partial listing):

Additionally, the package includes detailed information about the "bionic" C library provided with the Android platform that you should be aware of, if you are developing using the NDK. You can find the documentation in the <ndk>/docs/system/libc/ directory:

Sample apps

The NDK includes sample applications that illustrate how to use native code in your Android applications:

For each sample, the NDK includes the corresponding C source code and the necessary Android.mk and Application.mk files. There are located under <ndk>/samples/<name>/ and their source code can be found under <ndk>/samples/<name>/jni/.

You can build the shared libraries for the sample apps by going into <ndk>/samples/<name>/ then calling the ndk-build command. The generated shared libraries will be located under <ndk>/samples/<name>/libs/armeabi/ for (ARMv5TE machine code) and/or <ndk>/samples/<name>/libs/armeabi-v7a/ for (ARMv7 machine code).

Next, build the sample Android applications that use the shared libraries:

For more information about developing with the Android SDK tools and what you need to do to create, build, and run your applications, see the Overview section for developing on Android.

Exploring the hello-jni Sample

The hello-jni sample is a simple demonstration on how to use JNI from an Android application. The HelloJni activity receives a string from a simple C function and displays it in a TextView.

The main components of the sample include:

  1. Create a new project in Eclipse from the existing sample source or use the android tool to update the project so it generates a build.xml file that you can use to build the sample.
  2. Compile the native code using the ndk-build command. 
    cd <ndk-root>/samples/hello-jni
<ndk_root>/ndk-build
  3. Build and install the application as you would a normal Android application. If you are using Eclipse, run the application to build and install it on a device. If you are using Ant, run the following commands from the project directory: 
    ant debug
adb install bin/HelloJni-debug.apk

When you run the application on the device, the string Hello JNI should appear on your device. You can explore the rest of the samples that are located in the <ndk-root>/samples directory for more examples on how to use the JNI.

Exploring the native-activity Sample Application

The native-activity sample provided with the Android NDK demonstrates how to use the android_native_app_glue static library. This static library makes creating a native activity easier by providing you with an implementation that handles your callbacks in another thread, so you do not have to worry about them blocking your main UI thread. The main parts of the sample are described below:

To build this sample application:

  1. Create a new project in Eclipse from the existing sample source or use the android tool to update the project so it generates a build.xml file that you can use to build the sample.
  2. Compile the native code using the ndk-build command. 
    cd <ndk-root>/platforms/samples/android-9/samples/native-activity
<ndk_root>/ndk-build
  3. Build and install the application as you would a normal Android application. If you are using Eclipse, run the application to build and install it on a device. If you are using Ant, run the following commands in the project directory, then run the application on the device: 
    ant debug
adb install bin/NativeActivity-debug.apk