1<html><body><pre>USING THE ANDROID TOOLCHAIN AS A STANDALONE COMPILER 2====================================================== 3 4It is now possible to use the toolchains provided with the Android NDK as 5standalone compilers. This can be useful if you already have your own build 6system, and only need to ability to invoke the cross-compiler to add support 7to Android for it. 8 9A typical use case if invoking the 'configure' script of an open-source 10library that expects a cross-compiler in the CC environment variable. 11 12 13This document explains how to do that: 14 151/ Selecting your toolchain: 16---------------------------- 17 18Before anything else, you need to decide whether your standalone toolchain 19is going to target ARM-based devices, x86-based, or MIPS-based one. 20Each architecture corresponds to a different toolchain name: 21 22 * arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3 => targetting ARM-based Android devices 23 * x86-4.4.3 => targetting x86-based Android devices 24 * mipsel-linux-android-4.4.3 => targetting MIPS-based Android devices 25 262/ Selecting your sysroot: 27-------------------------- 28 29The second thing you need to know is which Android native API level you want 30to target. Each one of them provides a different various APIs, which are 31documented under doc/STABLE-APIS.html, and correspond to the sub-directories 32of $NDK/platforms. 33 34This allows you to define the path to your 'sysroot', a GCC term for a 35directory containing the system headers and libraries of your target. 36Usually, this will be something like: 37 38 SYSROOT=$NDK/platforms/android-<level>/arch-<arch>/ 39 40Where <level> is the API level number, and <arch> is the architecture 41("arm", "x86", and "mips" are the supported values). For example, if you're 42targeting Android 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo), you would use: 43 44 SYSROOT=$NDK/platforms/android-8/arch-arm 45 46IMPORTANT: Note that only android-9 is supported for the x86 architecture. 47Note that android-9 and later are supported for the MIPS architecture. 48 492/ Invoking the compiler (the hard way): 50---------------------------------------- 51 52Invoke the compiler using the --sysroot option to indicate where the system 53files for the platform you're targeting are located. For example, do: 54 55 export CC="$NDK/toolchains/<name>/prebuilt/<system>/bin/<prefix>gcc --sysroot=$SYSROOT" 56 $CC -o foo.o -c foo.c 57 58Where <name> is the toolchain's name, <system> is the host tag for your system, 59and <prefix> is a toolchain-specific prefix. For example, if you are on Linux 60using the NDK r5 toolchain, you would use: 61 62 export CC="$NDK/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.4.3/prebuilt/linux-x86/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-gcc --sysroot=$SYSROOT" 63 64As you can see, this is rather verbose, but it works! 65 66IMPORTANT NOTE: 67 68 Using the NDK toolchain directly has a serious limitation: 69 You won't be able to use any C++ STL (either STLport or 70 the GNU libstdc++) with it. Also no exceptions and no RTTI. 71 72 733/ Invoking the compiler (the easy way): 74---------------------------------------- 75 76The NDK allows you to create a "customized" toolchain installation to make 77life easier. For example, consider the following command: 78 79 $NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh --platform=android-5 --install-dir=/tmp/my-android-toolchain 80 81This will create a directory named /tmp/my-android-toolchain containing a 82copy of the android-5/arch-arm sysroot, and of the toolchain binaries. 83 84Note that by default, the ARM-based toolchain will be selected by the script. 85Use the '--arch=x86' option to specify the x86-based one, 86use the '--arch=mips' option to specify the MIPS-based one, or alternatively 87'--toolchain=<name>'. 88 89You can later use it directly with something like: 90 91 export PATH=/tmp/my-android-toolchain/bin:$PATH 92 export CC=arm-linux-androideabi-gcc 93 94Note that without the --install-dir option, make-standalone-toolchain.sh will 95create a tarball in /tmp/ndk/<toolchain-name>.tar.bz2. This allows you to 96archive and redistribute the binaries easily. 97 98Another important benefit is that this standalone toolchain will contain a 99working copy of the GNU libstdc++, with working exceptions and RTTI support 100(as long as you link against libstdc++ or libsupc++) 101 102Use --help for more options and details. 103 104IMPORTANT: The toolchain binaries do not depend or contain host-specific paths, 105 in other words, they can be installed in any location, or even 106 moved if you need to. 107 108NOTE: You can still use the --sysroot option with the new toolchain, but it 109 is now simply optional! 110 111 1124/ ABI Compatibility: 113--------------------- 114 115The machine code generated by the ARM toolchain should be compatible with 116the official Android 'armeabi' ABI (see docs/CPU-ARCH-ABIS.html) by default. 117 118It is recommended to use the -mthumb compiler flag to force the generation 119of 16-bit Thumb-1 instructions (the default being 32-bit ARM ones). 120 121If you want to target the 'armeabi-v7a' ABI, you will need ensure that the 122following two flags are being used: 123 124 CFLAGS='-march=armv7-a -mfloat-abi=softfp' 125 126Note: The first flag enables Thumb-2 instructions, and the second one 127 enables H/W FPU instructions while ensuring that floating-point 128 parameters are passed in core registers, which is critical for 129 ABI compatibility. Do *not* use these flags separately! 130 131If you want to use Neon instructions, you will need one more compiler flag: 132 133 CFLAGS='-march=armv7-a -mfloat-abi=softfp -mfpu=neon' 134 135Note that this forces the use of VFPv3-D32, as per the ARM specification. 136 137Also, make sure the following two flags are provided to linker: 138 139 LDFLAGS='-march=armv7-a -Wl,--fix-cortex-a8' 140 141Note: The first flag instructs linker to pick libgcc.a, libgcov.a and 142 crt*.o tailored for armv7. The 2nd flag is *required* to routes 143 around a CPU bug in some Cortex-A8 implementations: 144 145If none of the above makes sense to you, it's probably better not to use 146the standalone toolchain, and stick to the NDK build system instead, which 147will handle all the details for you. 148 149You don't have to use any specific compiler flag when targetting the x86 ABI 150or the MIPS ABI. 151 1525/ Warnings and Limitations: 153-------------------------- 154 1555.1/ Windows support: 156- - - - - - - - - - - 157 158The Windows binaries do *not* depend on Cygwin. The good news is that they 159are thus faster, the bad news is that they do not understand the Cygwin 160path specification like /cygdrive/c/foo/bar (instead of C:/foo/bar). 161 162The NDK build system ensures that all paths passed to the compiler from Cygwin 163are automatically translated, and deals with other horrors for you. If you have 164a custom build system, you may need to deal with the problem yourself. 165 166NOTE: There is no plan to support Cygwin / MSys at the moment, but 167 contributions are welcome. Contact the android-ndk forum for details. 168 169 1705.2/ wchar_t support: 171- - - - - - - - - - - 172 173As documented, the Android platform did not really support wchar_t until 174Android 2.3. What this means in practical terms is that: 175 176 - If you target platform android-9 or higher, the size of wchar_t is 177 4 bytes, and most wide-char functions are available in the C library 178 (with the exception of multi-byte encoding/decoding functions and 179 wsprintf/wsscanf). 180 181 - If you target any prior API level, the size of wchar_t will be 1 byte 182 and none of the wide-char functions will work anyway. 183 184We recommend any developer to get rid of any dependencies on the wchar_t type 185and switch to better representations. The support provided in Android is only 186there to help you migrate existing code. 187 188 1895.3/ Exceptions, RTTI and STL: 190- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 191 192The toolchain binaries *do* support C++ exceptions and RTTI by default. 193They are enabled by default, so use -fno-exceptions and -fno-rtti if you 194want to disable them when building sources with them (e.g. to generate 195smaller machine code). 196 197NOTE: You will need to explicitly link with libsupc++ if you use these 198 features. To do this, use -lsupc++ when linking binaries, as in: 199 200 arm-linux-androideabi-g++ .... -lsupc++ 201 202 2035.4/ C++ STL support: 204- - - - - - - - - - - 205 206The standalone toolchain also comes with a copy of the GNU libstdc++ 207library, which provides an implementation of the C++ Standard Template 208Library. To use it, you however need to link with the proper library: 209 210 * Use -lstdc++ to link against the _static_ library version. This ensures 211 that all required C++ STL code is included into your final binary. This 212 is ideal if you are only generating a single shared library or executable. 213 214 This is the recommended way to do it. 215 216 * Use -lgnustl_shared to link against the _shared_ library version. This 217 is required if you have several related shared libraries or executables 218 that need to run in the same address space at runtime (some global variables 219 need to be defined uniquely, which is not possible if you link the static 220 libstdc++ against each one of your executables). 221 222 If you use this option, you need to ensure that libgnustl_shared.so is 223 also copied to your device for your code to load properly. The file is 224 at: 225 226 $TOOLCHAIN/arm-linux-androideabi/lib/ for ARM toolchains. 227 $TOOLCHAIN/i686-linux-android/lib/ for x86 ones. 228 $TOOLCHAIN/mipsel-linux-android/lib/ for MIPS toolchains. 229 230 231 IMPORTANT: The GNU libstdc++ is licensed under the GPLv3 with a 232 linking exception. See the following URL for details: 233 234 http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/bk01pt01ch01s02.html 235 236 If you cannot comply with its requirements, i.e. you cannot redistribute 237 the shared library, do not use it in your project. 238 239The reason the shared version of GNU libstdc++ is not called libstdc++.so is 240because this would conflict at runtime with the system's own minimal C++ 241runtime, which is /system/lib/libstdc++.so. This enforces a new name for the 242GNU ELF library. This is not a problem for the static library. 243 244</pre></body></html> 245