<html><body><pre>Application.mk file syntax specification Introduction: ------------- This document describes the syntax of Application.mk build files written to describe the native modules required by your Android application. To understand what follows, it is assumed that you have read the docs/OVERVIEW.html file that explains their role and usage. Readers of this document should have read docs/OVERVIEW.html and docs/ANDROID-MK.html Overview: --------- The purpose of Application.mk is to describe which native 'modules' (i.e. static/shared libraries) are needed by your application. An Application.mk file is usually placed under $PROJECT/jni/Application.mk, where $PROJECT points to your application's project directory. Another alternative is to place it under a sub-directory of the top-level $NDK/apps directory, e.g.: $NDK/apps/<myapp>/Application.mk Where <myapp> is a short name used to describe your 'application' to the NDK build system (this name doesn't go into your generated shared libraries or your final packages). The Application.mk is really a tiny GNU Makefile fragment that must define a few variables: APP_PROJECT_PATH This variable should give the *absolute* path to your Application's project root directory. This is used to copy/install stripped versions of the generated JNI shared libraries to a specific location known to the APK-generating tools. Note that it is optional for $PROJECT/jni/Application.mk, but *mandatory* for $NDK/apps/<myapp>/Application.mk APP_MODULES This variable is optional. If not defined, the NDK will build by default _all_ the modules declared by your Android.mk, and any sub-makefile it may include. If APP_MODULES is defined, it must be a space-separated list of module names as they appear in the LOCAL_MODULE definitions of Android.mk files. Note that the NDK will compute module dependencies automatically. NOTE: This variable's behaviour changed in NDK r4. Before that: - the variable was mandatory in your Application.mk - all required modules had to be listed explicitly. APP_OPTIM This optional variable can be defined to either 'release' or 'debug'. This is used to alter the optimization level when building your application's modules. A 'release' mode is the default, and will generate highly optimized binaries. The 'debug' mode will generate un-optimized binaries which are much easier to debug. Note that if your application is debuggable (i.e. if your manifest sets the android:debuggable attribute to "true" in its <application> tag), the default will be 'debug' instead of 'release'. This can be overridden by setting APP_OPTIM to 'release'. Note that it is possible to debug both 'release' and 'debug' binaries, but the 'release' builds tend to provide less information during debugging sessions: some variables are optimized out and can't be inspected, code re-ordering can make stepping through the code difficult, stack traces may not be reliable, etc... APP_CFLAGS A set of C compiler flags passed when compiling any C or C++ source code of any of the modules. This can be used to change the build of a given module depending on the application that needs it, instead of modifying the Android.mk file itself. IMPORTANT WARNING: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + All paths in these flags should be relative to the top-level NDK + directory. For example, if you have the following setup: + + sources/foo/Android.mk + sources/bar/Android.mk + + To specify in foo/Android.mk that you want to add the path to the + 'bar' sources during compilation, you should use: + + APP_CFLAGS += -Isources/bar + + Or alternatively: + + APP_CFLAGS += -I$(LOCAL_PATH)/../bar + + Using '-I../bar' will *NOT* work since it will be equivalent to + '-I$NDK_ROOT/../bar' instead. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ NOTE: In android-ndk-1.5_r1, this only applied to C sources, not C++ ones. This has been corrected to match the full Android build system. APP_CXXFLAGS An alias for APP_CPPFLAGS, to be considered obsolete as it may disappear in a future release of the NDK. APP_CPPFLAGS A set of C++ compiler flags passed when building C++ sources *only*. NOTE: In android-ndk-1.5_r1, this applied to both C and C++ sources. This has been corrected to match the full Android build system. You can now use APP_CFLAGS for flags that shall apply to C and C++ sources. APP_BUILD_SCRIPT By default, the NDK build system will look for a file named Android.mk under $(APP_PROJECT_PATH)/jni, i.e. for the file: $(APP_PROJECT_PATH)/jni/Android.mk If you want to override this behaviour, you can define APP_BUILD_SCRIPT to point to an alternate build script. A non-absolute path will always be interpreted as relative to the NDK's top-level directory. APP_ABI By default, the NDK build system will generate machine code for the 'armeabi' ABI. This corresponds to an ARMv5TE based CPU with software floating point operations. You can use APP_ABI to select a different ABI. For example, to support hardware FPU instructions on ARMv7 based devices, use: APP_ABI := armeabi-v7a Or to support both ARMv5TE and ARMv7 based devices, use: APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a For the list of all supported ABIs and details about their usage and limitations, please read docs/CPU-ARCH-ABIS.html APP_STL By default, the NDK build system provides C++ headers for the minimal C++ runtime library (/system/lib/libstdc++.so) provided by the Android system. However, the NDK comes with alternative C++ implementations that you can use or link to in your own applications. Define APP_STL to select one of them. Examples are: APP_STL := stlport_static --> static STLport library APP_STL := stlport_shared --> shared STLport library APP_STL := system --> default C++ runtime library For more information on the subject, please read docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html A trivial Application.mk file would be: -------------- cut here ------------------------- APP_PROJECT_PATH := <path to project> -------------- cut here ------------------------- </pre></body></html>