Android studio define android sdk

What Is the Android SDK and How to Start Using It

Android SDK is a software development kit developed by Google for the Android platform. The Android SDK allows you to create Android apps, and you don’t need to be an expert to use it. In this tutorial, I’ll explain what the Android SDK is and how to get started with it.

Android SDK comes bundled with Android Studio, Google’s official integrated development environment (IDE) for the Android operating system. You can learn about Android Studio and the Android App Development Kit in another of my articles.

In this post, we’ll look at:

• What is the Android SDK?
• How to install the Android SDK
• What is the Android SDK Manager?
• What are the components of the Android SDK?

What Is the Android SDK?

The Android SDK is a collection of software development tools and libraries required to develop Android applications. Every time Google releases a new version of Android or an update, a corresponding SDK is also released which developers must download and install. It is worth noting that you can also download and use the Android SDK independently of Android Studio, but typically you’ll be working through Android Studio for any Android development.

The Android SDK comprises all the tools necessary to code programs from scratch and even test them. These tools provide a smooth flow of the development process from developing and debugging, through to packaging.

The Android SDK is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, so you can develop on any of those platforms.

How to Install the Android SDK

The Android SDK is optimized for Android Studio, and hence to effectively reap its benefits, you will need to install Android Studio. Having the Android SDK managed from within Android Studio is easier since support for languages like Java, Kotlin, and C++ is handled automatically. Not only that, but updates to the Android SDK are handled automatically by Android Studio.

To install the Android SDK from within Android Studio, first start Android Studio.

• From the Android Studio start page, select Configure > SDK Manager.

• If you already have Android Studio open, the SDK Manager icon is found on the top right corner, as shown below.

Install the required Android SDK platform packages and developer tools. A good start is to install:

• Android SDK Build-Tools
• Android Emulator
• Android SDK Platform-Tools
• Android SDK Tools
• Documentation for Android SDK

Click Apply, and Android Studio will install the selected tools and packages.

What Is the SDK Manager?

The Android SDK is composed of modular packages that you can download, install, and update separately using the Android SDK Manager. The SDK Manager helps to update new SDK releases and updates whenever a new Android platform is released. The SDK manager can be found in the top-right corner of the Android Studio screen, as shown below.

All that is required to follow the instructions provided, and the updates will be immediately downloaded to your environment.

What Are the Components of the Android SDK?

The Android SDK consists of an emulator, development tools, sample projects with source code, and the required libraries to build Android applications. Let’s look at the key components one by one.

Android SDK Tools

Android SDK Tools is a component of the Android SDK. It includes a complete set of development and debugging tools for Android, and is included with Android Studio. The SDK Tools also consist of testing tools and other utilities required to develop an app.

SDK Build Tools

Build tools are required for building components for building the actual binaries for your Android app. Always ensure your build tools component is up to date by downloading the latest version in the Android SDK Manager.

SDK Platform-Tools

Android Platform-Tools are used to support the features for the current Android platform and are necessary for Android app development. These tools interface with the Android platform on the device you use for testing. They include:

• Android Debug Bridge (adb): This is a handy command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. The adb command allows you to perform device actions, such as installing and debugging apps. It also provides access to a Unix shell that you can use to run a variety of commands on a device.
• fastboot: This lets you flash a device with a new system image.
• systrace: This tool helps collect and inspect timing information across all processes running on your device at the system level. It’s crucial for debugging app performance.

SDK Platform-Tools are backward compatible, so you need only one version of the SDK Platform-Tools.

SDK Platform

For each version of Android, there’s one SDK Platform available. These are numbered according to the Android version (e.g. Android 7 Nougat) and an API version (e.g. API Level 24). Before you build an Android app, you must specify an SDK Platform as your build target. Newer SDK Platform versions have more features for developers, but older devices may not be compatible with the newer platform versions.

Google APIs

Google provides a number of exclusive Google APIs to make developing your app easier. They also offer a system image for the emulator so you can test your app using the Google APIs.

Android Emulator

The Android Emulator is a QEMU-based device-emulation tool that simulates Android devices on your computer, allowing developers to test applications on different devices and Android API levels, without needing to have physical devices for each. The emulator comes with configurations for various Android phones, tablets, Wear OS, and Android TV devices.

The Android emulator provides almost all of the capabilities of a real Android device. You can perform the following activities:

• simulate phone calls and text messages
• simulate different network speeds
• specify the location of the device
• simulate hardware sensors such as rotation
• access Google Play Store and much more

Often it is faster and easier to test your app with an emulator instead of using a physical device.

Conclusion

In this post, we looked at some of the basics of the Android SDK. The Android SDK is the only way to develop for Android devices. Fortunately, it contains extensive documentation, tutorials, samples, best practice guidance, and an array of tools for many different development tasks.

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An Android app template is a great way to jump-start your app project or to learn some new skills by exploring the source code of a professionally made app.

Take a look at some of our roundups of the best Android app templates:

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Install and configure the NDK and CMake

To compile and debug native code for your app, you need the following components:

• The Android Native Development Kit (NDK): a set of tools that allows you to use C and C++ code with Android.
• CMake: an external build tool that works alongside Gradle to build your native library. You do not need this component if you only plan to use ndk-build.
• LLDB: the debugger Android Studio uses to debug native code. By default, LLDB will be installed alongside Android Studio.

This page describes how to install these components automatically, or by using Android Studio or the sdkmanager tool to download and install them manually.

Install NDK and CMake automatically

Android Gradle Plugin 4.2.0+ can automatically install the required NDK and CMake the first time you build your project if their licenses have been accepted in advance. If you’ve already read and agree to the license terms, then you can pre-accept the licenses in scripts with the following command:

Install the NDK and CMake

When you install the NDK, Android Studio selects the latest available NDK. For most projects, installing this default version of the NDK is sufficient. If your project needs one or more specific versions of the NDK, though, you can download and configure specific versions. Doing so helps you ensure reproducible builds across projects that each depend on a specific version of the NDK. Android Studio installs all versions of the NDK in the android-sdk /ndk/ directory.

To install CMake and the default NDK in Android Studio, do the following:

With a project open, click Tools > SDK Manager.

Click the SDK Tools tab.

Select the NDK (Side by side) and CMake checkboxes.

Figure 1: The SDK Tools window showing the NDK (Side by side) option

Click OK.

A dialog box tells you how much space the NDK package consumes on disk.

Click OK.

When the installation is complete, click Finish.

Your project automatically syncs the build file and performs a build. Resolve any errors that occur.

Configure a specific version of CMake

The SDK Manager includes the 3.6.0 forked version of CMake and version 3.10.2. Projects that don’t set a specific CMake version are built with CMake 3.10.2. To set the CMake version, add the following to your module’s build.gradle file:

Groovy

Kotlin

If you want to use a CMake version that is not included by the SDK Manager, follow these steps:

1. Download and install CMake from the official CMake website.
2. Specify the CMake version you want Gradle to use in your module’s build.gradle file.

Either add the path to the CMake installation to your PATH environment variable or include it in your project’s local.properties file, as shown. If Gradle is unable to find the version of CMake you specified in your build.gradle file, you get a build error.

If you don’t already have the Ninja build system installed on your workstation, go to the official Ninja website, and download and install the latest version of Ninja available for your OS. Make sure to also add the path to the Ninja installation to your PATH environment variable.

Install a specific version of the NDK

To install a specific version of the NDK, do the following:

With a project open, click Tools > SDK Manager.

Click the SDK Tools tab.

Select the Show Package Details checkbox.

Select the NDK (Side by side) checkbox and the checkboxes below it that correspond to the NDK versions you want to install. Android Studio installs all versions of the NDK in the android-sdk /ndk/ directory.

Figure 2: The SDK Tools window showing the NDK (Side by side) options

Click OK.

A dialog box tells you how much space the NDK package(s) consumes.

Click OK.

When the installation is complete, click Finish.

Your project automatically syncs the build file and performs a build. Resolve any errors that occur.

Configure each module with the version of the NDK you want it to use. When using Android Studio 3.6 or higher, if you do not specify the version, the Android Gradle plugin chooses a version that it is known to be compatible with.

Configure specific versions of the NDK in your project

You may need to configure the version of the NDK in your project if one of the following is true:

Your project is inherited and you need to use specific versions of the NDK and the Android Gradle plugin (AGP). For more information, see Configure the NDK for the Android Gradle plugin.

You have multiple versions of the NDK installed and you want to use a specific one. In this case, specify the version using the android.ndkVersion property in the module’s build.gradle file, as shown in the following code sample.

Groovy

Kotlin

Default NDK version per AGP version

Before release, each AGP version is thoroughly tested with the latest stable NDK release at that time. For AGP version 3.6 and above, that NDK version will be used to build your projects if you do NOT specify an NDK version in the build.gradle file. The default NDK version is documented inside the AGP release notes. The current default NDK versions are listed in the following table:

Android Studio/Gradle Plugin Version
7.0	4.2	4.1	4.0	3.6	3.5	3.4
Default NDK version specified for the version of AGP	21.4.7075529	21.4.7075529	21.1.6352462	21.0.6113669	20.0.5594570	No default specified

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