19. Android Native Development Kit

This chapter covers Introducing the Android Native Development Kit Exploring the Java Native Interface Building an application with the NDK Integrating NDK into Eclipse

The majority of the code in this book is written to employ the Android SDK using the Java programming language. Looking back to chapter 13, we explored creating native executable applications for Android by writing Linux-compatible applications. The code in that chapter was written in the C language, but it didn’t produce applications that are easily executed on consumer hardware. The design approach in chapter 13 requires an unlocked developer, or rooted, device and is arguably only applicable for developers who are building custom Android builds—it’s not for the typical developer looking to deploy applications to consumer-based handsets. This chapter presents the “approved” manner of writing C code for the Android platform with assistance from the Android Native Developer Kit, or simply the NDK.