Gradle android build for different processor architectures

Question

I want to build 4 separate apks for 4 different Android CPU processor architectures (armeabi armeabi-v7a x86 mips) using Gradle.

I have native OpenCV libraries buil

Answer 1

I don't have a gradle answer, but I think I now have a generic answer for any Android build tool. Here is my idea on how to create separate APK files for each supported processor architecture:

1. Build your APK with any tools you use, containing all native code libraries you support, e.g. armeabi, armeabi-v7a, x86 and mips. I'll call it the 'original' APK file.

2. Unzip your original APK into an empty folder, with any zip/unzip utility, best use command line tools, so that you could automate it with a shell script or batch file later.

3. In the folder where original APK was uncompressed to, delete META-INF sub-folder (this contains the signatures, we'll need to re-sign the APK after all the modifications, so the original META-INF must be deleted).

4. Change to lib sub-folder, and delete the sub-folders for any processor architectures you don't want in the new APK file. For example, leave only 'x86' sub-folder to make an APK for Intel Atom processors.

5. Important: each APK for a different architecture, must have a different 'versionCode' number in AndroidManifest.xml, and the version code for e.g. armeabi-v7a must be slightly higher than the one for armeabi (read Google directions for creating multiple APKs here: http://developer.android.com/google/play/publishing/multiple-apks.html ). Unfortunately, the manifest file is in a compiled binary form inside the APK. We need a special tool for modifying the versionCode there. See below.

6. Once the manifest is modified with a new version code, and unnecessary directories and files deleted, re-zip, sign and align your smaller APK (use jarsigner and zipalign tools from Android SDK).

7. Repeat the process for all other architectures you need to support, creating smaller APK files with slightly different version codes (but the same version name).

The only outstanding issue is the way to modify ‘versionCode’ in binary manifest file. I could not find a solution for this for a long time, so finally had to sit down and crank my own code to do this. As the starting point, I took APKExtractor by Prasanta Paul, http://code.google.com/p/apk-extractor/, written in Java. I’m the old school and still more comfortable with C++, so my little utility program 'aminc' written in C++ is now on GitHub at:

https://github.com/gregko/aminc

I posted the entire Visual Studio 2012 solution, but the whole program is a single .cpp file which probably can be compiled on any platform. And here is a sample Windows .bat file I use to split my "fat" apk named atVoice.apk into 4 smaller files named atVoice_armeabi.apk, atVoice_armeabi-v7a.apk, atVoice_x86.apk and atVoice_mips.apk. I actually submit these files to Google Play (see my app at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hyperionics.avar) and all works perfectly. Please also see this Github project by Jorge Suárez de Lis, who posts a similar script for Linux.

@echo off
REM    My "fat" apk is named atVoice.apk. Change below to whatever or set from %1
set apkfile=atVoice
del *.apk

REM    My tools build atVoice-release.apk in bin project sub-dir. 
REM    Copy it here for splitting.
copy ..\bin\%apkfile%-release.apk %apkfile%.apk

zip -d %apkfile%.apk META-INF/*

REM ------------------- armeabi ------------------------
unzip %apkfile%.apk AndroidManifest.xml
copy/y %apkfile%.apk %apkfile%.zip
zip -d %apkfile%.zip lib/armeabi-v7a/* lib/x86/* lib/mips/*
aminc AndroidManifest.xml 1
zip -f %apkfile%.zip
ren %apkfile%.zip %apkfile%_armeabi.apk
jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore d:\users\greg\.android\Hyperionics.keystore -storepass MyPass %apkfile%_armeabi.apk MyKeyName
zipalign 4 %apkfile%_armeabi.apk %apkfile%_armeabi-aligned.apk
del %apkfile%_armeabi.apk
ren %apkfile%_armeabi-aligned.apk %apkfile%_armeabi.apk

REM ------------------- armeabi-v7a ---------------------
copy/y %apkfile%.apk %apkfile%.zip
zip -d %apkfile%.zip lib/armeabi/* lib/x86/* lib/mips/*
aminc AndroidManifest.xml 1
zip -f %apkfile%.zip
ren %apkfile%.zip %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a.apk
jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore d:\users\greg\.android\Hyperionics.keystore -storepass MyPass %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a.apk MyKeyName
zipalign 4 %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a.apk %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a-aligned.apk
del %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a.apk
ren %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a-aligned.apk %apkfile%_armeabi-v7a.apk

REM ------------------- x86 ---------------------
copy/y %apkfile%.apk %apkfile%.zip
zip -d %apkfile%.zip lib/armeabi/* lib/armeabi-v7a/* lib/mips/*
aminc AndroidManifest.xml 9
zip -f %apkfile%.zip
ren %apkfile%.zip %apkfile%_x86.apk
jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore d:\users\greg\.android\Hyperionics.keystore -storepass MyPass %apkfile%_x86.apk MyKeyName
zipalign 4 %apkfile%_x86.apk %apkfile%_x86-aligned.apk
del %apkfile%_x86.apk
ren %apkfile%_x86-aligned.apk %apkfile%_x86.apk

REM ------------------- MIPS ---------------------
copy/y %apkfile%.apk %apkfile%.zip
zip -d %apkfile%.zip lib/armeabi/* lib/armeabi-v7a/* lib/x86/*
aminc AndroidManifest.xml 10
zip -f %apkfile%.zip
ren %apkfile%.zip %apkfile%_mips.apk
jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore d:\users\greg\.android\Hyperionics.keystore -storepass MyPass %apkfile%_mips.apk MyKeyName
zipalign 4 %apkfile%_mips.apk %apkfile%_mips-aligned.apk
del %apkfile%_mips.apk
ren %apkfile%_mips-aligned.apk %apkfile%_mips.apk


del AndroidManifest.xml
del %apkfile%.apk
:done

Greg