Build native packages for Android.

Requirements

• Python;
• Android SDK;

The Android SDK can be installed from Android Studio.

Then set the environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT or ANDROID_HOME.

Finally, Python's distutils package must be patched for cross-compiling. The patch is in the patches directory. Apply it like so:

DESTLIB=$(python -c "import sysconfig; \
    print(sysconfig.get_config_var('DESTLIB'))")
patch -p2 -d $DESTLIB < patches/patch-Python-3.10.0.txt

This patch should apply to any version of Python.

You may need to use sudo.

Install androidenv

Install from the Python Package Index:

pip install androidenv

You can also copy the file androidenv.py to where you need it, it is self contained.

Usage

Build something from source:

cd thing
python -m androidenv setup.py build
python -m androidenv setup.py install

You really want to do this in a virtual environment.

Use the --find-library option to find libraries like libandroid or liblog:

python -m androidenv --find-library android log

Environment variables

This module works entirely with environment variables.

Input environment variables:

• ANDROID_SDK_ROOT or ANDROID_HOME (required);
• ABI (optional; armeabi-v7a or arm64-v8a);
• API (optional);
• DEBUG (optional; 0 or 1);

What is being built must respect the following evironment variables:

• AR
• AS
• CC
• CFLAGS
• CPP
• CPPFLAGS
• CXX
• CXXFLAGS
• LD
• LDFLAGS
• PATH
• RANLIB
• READELF
• STRIP

Many packages do, many don't. Python itself (distutils) does not respect RANLIB; CMake does not respect CPPFLAGS; and many more. Fixing that is your homework.

setup.cfg

Some useful configuration options when building for Android:

[build]
build-base = build
build-temp = build/tmp
build-lib = build/lib