1 ================================================================================
2 Simple DirectMedia Layer for Android
3 ================================================================================
8 http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
10 Android NDK r4 or later
11 http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html
14 ================================================================================
16 ================================================================================
18 - Android applications are Java-based, optionally with parts written in C
19 - As SDL apps are C-based, we use a small Java shim that uses JNI to talk to
21 - This means that your application C code must be placed inside an android
22 Java project, along with some C support code that communicates with Java
23 - This eventually produces a standard Android .apk package
25 The Android Java code implements an "activity" and can be found in:
26 android-project/src/org/libsdl/app/SDLActivity.java
28 The Java code loads your game code, the SDL shared library, and
29 dispatches to native functions implemented in the SDL library:
32 Your project must include some glue code that starts your main() routine:
33 src/main/android/SDL_android_main.cpp
36 ================================================================================
38 ================================================================================
41 1. Copy the android-project directory wherever you want to keep your projects
42 and rename it to the name of your project.
43 2. Move or symlink this SDL directory into the <project>/jni directory
44 3. Edit <project>/jni/src/Android.mk to include your source files
45 4. Run 'ndk-build' (a script provided by the NDK). This compiles the C source
47 If you want to use the Eclipse IDE, skip to the Eclipse section below.
49 5. Edit <project>/local.properties to point to the Android SDK directory
50 6. Run 'ant debug' in android/project. This compiles the .java and eventually
51 creates a .apk with the native code embedded
52 7. 'ant debug install' will push the apk to the device or emulator (if connected)
54 Here's an explanation of the files in the Android project, so you can customize them:
57 AndroidManifest.xml - package manifest. Among others, it contains the class name
59 build.properties - empty
60 build.xml - build description file, used by ant. The actual application name
62 default.properties - holds the target ABI for the application, can range between
63 android-5 and android-16
64 local.properties - holds the SDK path, you should change this to the path to your SDK
65 jni/ - directory holding native code
66 jni/Android.mk - Android makefile that can call recursively the Android.mk files
68 jni/SDL/ - (symlink to) directory holding the SDL library files
69 jni/SDL/Android.mk - Android makefile for creating the SDL shared library
70 jni/src/ - directory holding your C/C++ source
71 jni/src/Android.mk - Android makefile that you should customize to include your
72 source code and any library references
73 res/ - directory holding resources for your application
74 res/drawable-* - directories holding icons for different phone hardware. Could be
75 one dir called "drawable".
76 res/layout/main.xml - Usually contains a file main.xml, which declares the screen layout.
77 We don't need it because we use the SDL video output.
78 res/values/strings.xml - strings used in your application, including the application name
80 src/org/libsdl/app/SDLActivity.java - the Java class handling the initialization and binding
81 to SDL. Be very careful changing this, as the SDL library relies
82 on this implementation.
85 ================================================================================
86 Customizing your application name
87 ================================================================================
89 To customize your application name, edit AndroidManifest.xml and replace
90 "org.libsdl.app" with an identifier for your product package.
92 Then create a Java class extending SDLActivity and place it in a directory
93 under src matching your package, e.g.
94 src/com/gamemaker/game/MyGame.java
96 Here's an example of a minimal class file:
97 --- MyGame.java --------------------------
98 package com.gamemaker.game;
100 import org.libsdl.app.SDLActivity;
103 * A sample wrapper class that just calls SDLActivity
106 public class MyGame extends SDLActivity { }
108 ------------------------------------------
110 Then replace "SDLActivity" in AndroidManifest.xml with the name of your
111 class, .e.g. "MyGame"
113 ================================================================================
114 Customizing your application icon
115 ================================================================================
117 Conceptually changing your icon is just replacing the icon.png files in the
118 drawable directories under the res directory. There are 3 directories for
119 different screen sizes. These can be replaced with 1 dir called 'drawable',
120 containing an icon file 'icon.png' with dimensions 48x48 or 72x72.
122 You may need to change the name of your icon in AndroidManifest.xml to match
125 ================================================================================
127 ================================================================================
129 Any files you put in the "assets" directory of your android-project directory
130 will get bundled into the application package and you can load them using the
131 standard functions in SDL_rwops.h.
133 There are also a few Android specific functions that allow you to get other
134 useful paths for saving and loading data:
135 SDL_AndroidGetInternalStoragePath()
136 SDL_AndroidGetExternalStorageState()
137 SDL_AndroidGetExternalStoragePath()
139 See SDL_system.h for more details on these functions.
141 The asset packaging system will, by default, compress certain file extensions.
142 SDL includes two asset file access mechanisms, the preferred one is the so
143 called "File Descriptor" method, which is faster and doesn't involve the Dalvik
144 GC, but given this method does not work on compressed assets, there is also the
145 "Input Stream" method, which is automatically used as a fall back by SDL. You
146 may want to keep this fact in mind when building your APK, specially when large
148 For more information on which extensions get compressed by default and how to
149 disable this behaviour, see for example:
151 http://ponystyle.com/blog/2010/03/26/dealing-with-asset-compression-in-android-apps/
153 ================================================================================
154 Pause / Resume behaviour
155 ================================================================================
157 If SDL is compiled with SDL_ANDROID_BLOCK_ON_PAUSE defined (the default),
158 the event loop will block itself when the app is paused (ie, when the user
159 returns to the main Android dashboard). Blocking is better in terms of battery
160 use, and it allows your app to spring back to life instantaneously after resume
161 (versus polling for a resume message).
163 Upon resume, SDL will attempt to restore the GL context automatically.
164 In modern devices (Android 3.0 and up) this will most likely succeed and your
165 app can continue to operate as it was.
167 However, there's a chance (on older hardware, or on systems under heavy load),
168 where the GL context can not be restored. In that case you have to listen for
169 a specific message, (which is not yet implemented!) and restore your textures
170 manually or quit the app (which is actually the kind of behaviour you'll see
171 under iOS, if the OS can not restore your GL context it will just kill your app)
173 ================================================================================
174 Threads and the JAVA VM
175 ================================================================================
177 For a quick tour on how Linux native threads interoperate with the JAVA VM, take
178 a look here: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/jni.html
179 If you want to use threads in your SDL app, it's strongly recommended that you
180 do so by creating them using SDL functions. This way, the required attach/detach
181 handling is managed by SDL automagically. If you have threads created by other
182 means and they make calls to SDL functions, make sure that you call
183 Android_JNI_SetupThread before doing anything else otherwise SDL will attach
184 your thread automatically anyway (when you make an SDL call), but it'll never
187 ================================================================================
189 ================================================================================
191 You can use STL in your project by creating an Application.mk file in the jni
192 folder and adding the following line:
193 APP_STL := stlport_static
195 For more information check out CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html in the NDK documentation.
197 ================================================================================
198 Additional documentation
199 ================================================================================
201 The documentation in the NDK docs directory is very helpful in understanding the
202 build process and how to work with native code on the Android platform.
204 The best place to start is with docs/OVERVIEW.TXT
207 ================================================================================
209 ================================================================================
211 First make sure that you've installed Eclipse and the Android extensions as described here:
212 http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html
214 Once you've copied the SDL android project and customized it, you can create an Eclipse project from it:
215 * File -> New -> Other
216 * Select the Android -> Android Project wizard and click Next
217 * Enter the name you'd like your project to have
218 * Select "Create project from existing source" and browse for your project directory
219 * Make sure the Build Target is set to Android 2.0
223 ================================================================================
225 ================================================================================
227 There are some good tips and tricks for getting the most out of the
228 emulator here: http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html
230 Especially useful is the info on setting up OpenGL ES 2.0 emulation.
232 Notice that this software emulator is incredibly slow and needs a lot of disk space.
233 Using a real device works better.
235 ================================================================================
237 ================================================================================
239 You can create and run an emulator from the Eclipse IDE:
240 * Window -> Android SDK and AVD Manager
242 You can see if adb can see any devices with the following command:
245 You can see the output of log messages on the default device with:
248 You can push files to the device with:
249 adb push local_file remote_path_and_file
251 You can push files to the SD Card at /sdcard, for example:
252 adb push moose.dat /sdcard/moose.dat
254 You can see the files on the SD card with a shell command:
255 adb shell ls /sdcard/
257 You can start a command shell on the default device with:
260 You can remove the library files of your project (and not the SDL lib files) with:
263 You can do a build with the following command:
266 You can see the complete command line that ndk-build is using by passing V=1 on the command line:
269 If your application crashes in native code, you can use addr2line to convert the
270 addresses in the stack trace to lines in your code.
272 For example, if your crash looks like this:
273 I/DEBUG ( 31): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 2 (SEGV_ACCERR), fault addr 400085d0
274 I/DEBUG ( 31): r0 00000000 r1 00001000 r2 00000003 r3 400085d4
275 I/DEBUG ( 31): r4 400085d0 r5 40008000 r6 afd41504 r7 436c6a7c
276 I/DEBUG ( 31): r8 436c6b30 r9 435c6fb0 10 435c6f9c fp 4168d82c
277 I/DEBUG ( 31): ip 8346aff0 sp 436c6a60 lr afd1c8ff pc afd1c902 cpsr 60000030
278 I/DEBUG ( 31): #00 pc 0001c902 /system/lib/libc.so
279 I/DEBUG ( 31): #01 pc 0001ccf6 /system/lib/libc.so
280 I/DEBUG ( 31): #02 pc 000014bc /data/data/org.libsdl.app/lib/libmain.so
281 I/DEBUG ( 31): #03 pc 00001506 /data/data/org.libsdl.app/lib/libmain.so
283 You can see that there's a crash in the C library being called from the main code.
284 I run addr2line with the debug version of my code:
285 arm-eabi-addr2line -C -f -e obj/local/armeabi/libmain.so
286 and then paste in the number after "pc" in the call stack, from the line that I care about:
289 I get output from addr2line showing that it's in the quit function, in testspriteminimal.c, on line 23.
291 You can add logging to your code to help show what's happening:
293 #include <android/log.h>
295 __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_INFO, "foo", "Something happened! x = %d", x);
297 If you need to build without optimization turned on, you can create a file called
298 "Application.mk" in the jni directory, with the following line in it:
302 ================================================================================
304 ================================================================================
306 The best (and slowest) way to debug memory issues on Android is valgrind.
307 Valgrind has support for Android out of the box, just grab code using:
308 svn co svn://svn.valgrind.org/valgrind/trunk valgrind
309 ... and follow the instructions in the file README.android to build it.
311 One thing I needed to do on Mac OS X was change the path to the toolchain,
312 and add ranlib to the environment variables:
313 export RANLIB=$NDKROOT/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/darwin-x86/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-ranlib
315 Once valgrind is built, you can create a wrapper script to launch your
316 application with it, changing org.libsdl.app to your package identifier:
317 --- start_valgrind_app -------------------
319 export TMPDIR=/data/data/org.libsdl.app
320 exec /data/local/Inst/bin/valgrind --log-file=/sdcard/valgrind.log --error-limit=no $*
321 ------------------------------------------
323 Then push it to the device:
324 adb push start_valgrind_app /data/local
326 and make it executable:
327 adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/start_valgrind_app
329 and tell Android to use the script to launch your application:
330 adb shell setprop wrap.org.libsdl.app "logwrapper /data/local/start_valgrind_app"
332 If the setprop command says "could not set property", it's likely that
333 your package name is too long and you should make it shorter by changing
334 AndroidManifest.xml and the path to your class file in android-project/src
336 You can then launch your application normally and waaaaaaaiiittt for it.
337 You can monitor the startup process with the logcat command above, and
338 when it's done (or even while it's running) you can grab the valgrind
340 adb pull /sdcard/valgrind.log
342 When you're done instrumenting with valgrind, you can disable the wrapper:
343 adb shell setprop wrap.org.libsdl.app ""
346 ================================================================================
348 ================================================================================
350 - TODO. I'm sure there's a bunch more stuff I haven't thought of