Installing the SDKThis page describes how to install the Android SDK and set up your development environment. If you haven't downloaded the SDK yet, you can use the link below to get started.

Download the SDK
ContentsSystem and Software Requirements Installing the SDK Installing the Eclipse Plugin (ADT) Developing Android Applications on Eclipse Developing Android Applications with Other IDEs and Tools Debugging Debug and Test Settings on the Device Top Debugging Tips Building and Installing an Android Application Removing an Android Application Eclipse Tips System and Software RequirementsTo develop Android applications using the code and tools in the Android SDK, you need a suitable development computer and development environment, as described below.
Supported Operating Systems
Windows XP or Vista
Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later (x86 only)
Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake)
Supported Development Environments
Eclipse
Eclipse 3.2, 3.3 (Europa)
Android Development Tools plugin (optional)
Other development environments or IDEs
JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows
Installing the SDKAfter downloading the SDK, unpack the .zip archive to a suitable location on your machine. For the rest of this document, we will refer to the directory where you installed the SDK as $SDK_ROOT.
Optionally, you can add $SDK_ROOT/tools to your path:
On Linux, edit your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc file. Look for a line that sets the PATH environment variable and add the full path to your $SDK_ROOT/tools to it. If you don't see a line setting the path, you can add one:
export PATH=${PATH}:<path to your $SDK_ROOT/tools>
On a Mac, look in your home directory for .bash_profile and proceed as for Linux. You can create the .bash_profile, if you haven't already set one up on your machine.
On Windows, right click on My Computer, and select Properties. Under the Advanced tab, hit the Environment Variables button, and in the dialog that comes up, double-click on Path under System Variables, and add the full path to the tools/ directory under $SDK_ROOT to it.
Adding $SDK_ROOT/tools to your path lets you run Android Debug Bridge (adb) and the other command line tools without needing to supply the full path to the tools directory. Note that, if you update your SDK, you should remember to update your PATH settings to point to the new location, if different.
Installing the Eclipse Plugin (ADT)If you will be using the Eclipse IDE as your environment for developing Android applications, you can install a custom plugin called Android Development Tools (ADT), which adds integrated support for Android projects and tools. The ADT plugin includes a variety of powerful extensions that make creating, running, and debugging Android applications faster and easier.
If you will not be using the Eclipse IDE, you do not need to download or install the ADT plugin.
To download and install the ADT plugin, set up an Eclipse remote update site as described in the steps below.
Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install....
In the dialog that appears, select Search for new features to install and press Next.
Press New Remote Site.
In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the remote site (e.g. Android Plugin) and enter this as its URL: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. Press OK.
You should now see the new site added to the search list (and checked). Press Finish.
In the subsequent Search Results dialog box, select the checkbox for Android Plugin > Eclipse Integration > Android Development Tools and press Next.
Read the license agreement and then select Accept terms of the license agreement, if appropriate. Press Next.
Press Finish.
The ADT plugin is not signed; you can accept the installation anyway by pressing Install All.
Restart Eclipse.
After restart, update your Eclipse preferences to point to the SDK root directory ($SDK_ROOT):
Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel. (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences)
Select Android from the left panel.
For the SDK Location in the main panel, press Browse... and find the SDK root directory.
Press Apply, then OK
Updating the ADT Plugin To update the ADT plugin to the latest version, follow these steps:
Select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install....
Select Search for updates of the currently installed features and press Finish.
If any update for ADT is available, select and install.
Alternatively,
Select Help > Software Updates > Manage Configuration.
Navigate down the tree and select Android Development Tools <version>
Select Scan for Updates under Available Tasks.
Developing Android Applications on EclipseTo begin developing Android applications in the Eclipse IDE, you first create an Android project and then set up a launch configuration. After that, you can write, run, and debug your application.
The sections below provide instructions assuming that you have installed the ADT plugin in your Eclipse environment. If you haven't installed the ADT plugin, you should do that before using the instructions below. See the Installing the Eclipse Plugin (ADT) for more information. Creating an Android ProjectThe ADT plugin provides a New Project Wizard that you can use to quickly create an Eclipse project for new or existing code. To create the project, follow these steps:
Select File > New > Project
Select Android > Android Project, and press Next
Select the contents for the project:
Select Create new project in workspace to start a project for new code. Enter the project name, the base package name, the name of a single Activity class to create as a stub .java file, and a name to use for your application.
Select Create project from existing source to start a project from existing code. Use this option if you want to build and run any of the sample applications included with the SDK. The sample applications are located in the samples/ directory in the SDK. Browse to the directory containing the existing source code and click OK. If the directory contains a valid Android manifest file, the ADT plugin fills in the package, activity, and application names for you.
Press Finish.
The ADT plugin creates the these folders and files for you as appropriate for the type of project:
src/   A folder that includes your stub .java Activity file.
res/   A folder for your resources.
AndroidManifest.xml   The manifest for your project.
Creating a Launch Configuration Before you can run and debug your application in Eclipse, you must create a launch configuration for it. A launch configuration specifies the project to launch, the Activity to start, the emulator options to use, and so on.
To create a launch configuration for the application, follow these steps:
Select Run > Open Run Dialog... or Run > Open Debug Dialog... as appropriate.
In the project type list on the left, right-click Android Application and select New.
Enter a name for your configuration.
On the Android tab, browse for the project and Activity to start.
On the Emulator tab, set the desired screen and network properties, as well as any other emulator startup options.
You can set additional options on the Common tab as desired.
Press Apply to save the launch configuration, or press Run or Debug (as appropriate).
Running and Debugging an ApplicationOnce you've set up the project and launch configuration for your application, you can run or debug it as described below.
From the Eclipse main menu, select Run > Run or Run > Debug as appropriate, to run or debug the active launch configuration. Note that the active launch configuration is the one most recently selected in the Run configuration manager. It does not necessarily correspond to the application that is selected in the Eclipse Navigation pane (if any).
To set or change the active launch configuration, use the Run configuration manager, which you can access through Run > Open Run Dialog... or Run > Open Debug Dialog....
Running or debugging the application triggers these actions:
Starts the emulator, if it is not already running.
Compiles the project, if there have been changes since the last build, and installs the application on the emulator.
Run starts the application.
Debug starts the application in "Wait for debugger" mode, then opens the Debug perspective and attaches the Eclipse Java debugger to the application.
Developing Android Applications with Other IDEs and ToolsThe recommended way to develop an Android application is to use Eclipse with the Android plugin. This plugin provides editing, building, and debugging functionality integrated right into the IDE. However, the SDK includes tools to enable you to develop with other IDEs, including intelliJ (or if you'd rather use Eclipse without the plugin).
Creating an Android Project The Android SDK includes activityCreator, a program that generates a number of stub files for your project, as well as a build file. You can use the program to create an Android project for new code or from existing code, such as the sample applications included in the SDK. For Linux and Mac, the SDK provides activityCreator.py, a Python script, and for Windows, activityCreator.bat, a batch script. Regardless of platform, you can use activityCreator in the same way.
To run activityCreator and create an Android project, follow these steps:
In the command line, change to the tools/ directory of the SDK and create a new directory for your project files. If you are creating a project from existing code, change to the root folder of your application instead.
Run activityCreator. In the command, you must specify a fully-qualified class name as an argument. If you are creating a project for new code, the class represents the name of a stub class that the script will create. If you are creating a project from existing code, you must specify the name of one Activity class in the package. Command options for the script include:
--out <folder> which sets the output directory. By default, the output directory is the current directory. If you created a new directory for your project files, use this option to point to it.
--ide intellij, which generates IntelliJ IDEA project files in the newly created project
Here's an example:
                ~/android_linux_sdk/tools$ ./activityCreator.py --out myproject your.package.name.ActivityName                package: your.package.name                out_dir: myproject                activity_name: ActivityName                ~/android_linux_sdk/tools$ The activityCreator script generates the following files and directories (but will not overwrite existing ones):
AndroidManifest.xml The application manifest file, synced to the specified Activity class for the project.
build.xml An Ant file that you can use to build/package the application.
src/your/package/name/ActivityName.java The Activity class you specified on input.
your_activity.iml, your_activity.ipr, your_activity.iws    [only with the -ide intelliJ flag] intelliJ project files.
res/   A directory to hold resources.
src/    The source directory.
bin/    The output directory for the build script.
You can now move your folder wherever you want for development, but keep in mind that you'll have to use the adb program in the tools/ folder to send files to the emulator, so you'll need access between your solution and the tools/ folder.
Also, you should refrain from moving the location of the SDK directory, since this will break the build scripts (they will need to be manually updated to reflect the new SDK location before they will work again).
Building an Android ApplicationUse the Ant build.xml file generated by activityCreator to build your application.
If you don't have it, you can obtain Ant from the Apache Ant home page. Install it and make sure it is on your executable path.
Before calling Ant, you need to declare the JAVA_HOME environment variable to specify the path to where the JDK is installed. Note: When installing JDK on Windows, the default is to install in the "Program Files" directory. This location will cause ant to fail, because of the space. To fix the problem, you can specify the JAVA_HOME variable like this: set JAVA_HOME=c:\Prora~1\Java\. The easiest solution, however, is to install JDK in a non-space directory, for example: c:\java\jdk1.6.0_02.
If you have not done so already, follow the instructions for Creating a New Project above to set up the project.
You can now run the Ant build file by simply typing ant in the same folder as the build.xml file for your project. Each time you change a source file or resource, you should run ant again and it will package up the latest version of the application for you to deploy.
Running an Android ApplicationTo run a compiled application, you will upload the .apk file to the /data/app/ directory in the emulator using the adb tool as described here:
Start the emulator (run $SDK_HOME/tools/emulator from the command line)
On the emulator, navigate to the home screen (it is best not to have that application running when you reinstall it on the emulator; press the Home key to navigate away from that application).
Run adb install myproject/bin/<appname>.apk to upload the executable. So, for example, to install the Lunar Lander sample, navigate in the command line to $SDK_ROOT/sample/LunarLander and type ../../tools/adb install bin/LunarLander.apk
In the emulator, open the list of available applications, and scroll down to select and start your application.
Note: When you install an Activity for the first time, you might have to restart the emulator before it shows up in the application launcher, or other applications can call it. This is because the package manager usually only examines manifests completely on emulator startup.
Attaching a Debugger to Your ApplicationThis section describes how to display debug information on the screen (such as CPU usage), as well as how to hook up your IDE to debug running applications on the emulator.
Attaching a debugger is automated using the Eclipse plugin, but you can configure other IDEs to listen on a debugging port to receive debugging information.
Start the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) tool , which acts as a port forwarding service between your IDE and the emulator.
Set optional debugging configurations on your emulator, such as blocking application startup for an activity until a debugger is attached. Note that many of these debugging options can be used without DDMS, such as displaying CPU usage or screen refresh rate on the emulator.
Configure your IDE to attach to port 8700 for debugging. We include information on how to set up Eclipse to debug your project.
Configuring your IDE to attach to the debugging portDDMS will assign a specific debugging port to every virtual machine that it finds on the emulator. You must either attach your IDE to that port (listed on the Info tab for that VM), or you can use a default port 8700 to connect to whatever application is currently selected on the list of discovered virtual machines.
Your IDE should attach to your application running on the emulator, showing you its threads and allowing you to suspend them, inspect their state, and set breakpoints. If you selected "Wait for debugger" in the Development settings panel the application will run when Eclipse connects, so you will need to set any breakpoints you want before connecting.
Changing either the application being debugged or the "Wait for debugger" option causes the system to kill the selected application if it is currently running. You can use this to kill your application if it is in a bad state by simply going to the settings and toggling the checkbox.
DebuggingAndroid has a fairly extensive set of tools to help you debug your programs:
DDMS - A graphical program that supports port forwarding (so you can set up breakpoints in your code in your IDE), screen captures on the emulator, thread and stack information, and many other features. You can also run logcat to retrieve your Log messages. See the linked topic for more information.
logcat - Dumps a log of system messages. The messages include a stack trace when the emulator throws an error, as well as Log messages. To run logcat, see the linked topic. ...I/MemoryDealer( 763): MemoryDealer (this=0x54bda0): Creating 2621440 bytes heap at 0x438db000I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 0I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 1I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 2D/ActivityManager( 763): Stopping: HistoryRecord{409dbb20 com.google.android.home.AllApps}...
Android Log- A logging class to print out messages to a log file on the emulator. You can read messages in real time if you run logcat on DDMS (covered next). Add a few logging method calls to your code.
To use the Log class, you just call Log.v() (verbose), Log.d() (debug), Log.i() (information), Log.w() (warning) or Log.e (error) depending on the importance you wish to assign the log message.
Log.i("MyActivity", "MyClass.getView() — Requesting item number " + position) You can use logcat to read these messages
Traceview - Android can save a log of method calls and times to a logging file that you can view in a graphical reader called Traceview. See the linked topic for more information.
Eclipse plugin - The Eclipse Android plugin incorporates a number of these tools (ADB, DDMS, logcat output, and other functionality). See the linked topic for more information.
Debug and Test Device Settings - Android exposes several settings that expose useful information such as CPU usage and frame rate. See Debug and Test Settings on the Emulator below.
Also, see the Troubleshooting section of the doc to figure out why your application isn't appearing on the emulator, or why it's not starting.
Debug and Test Settings on the DeviceAndroid lets you set a number of settings that will make it easier to test and debug your applications. To get to the development settings page on the emulator, go to Dev Tools > Development Settings. This will open the development settings page with the following options (among others):
Debug app   Selects the application that will be debugged. You do not need to set this to attach a debugger, but setting this value has two effects:
It will prevent Android from throwing an error if you pause on a breakpoint for a long time while debugging.
It will enable you to select the Wait for Debugger option to pause application startup until your debugger attaches (described next).
Wait for debugger    Blocks the selected application from loading until a debugger attaches. This way you can set a breakpoint in onCreate(), which is important to debug the startup process of an Activity. When you change this option, any currently running instances of the selected application will be killed. In order to check this box, you must have selected a debug application as described in the previous option. You can do the same thing by adding waitForDebugger() to your code.
Immediately destroy activities   Tells the system to destroy an activity as soon as it is stopped (as if Android had to reclaim memory).  This is very useful for testing the onFreeze(Bundle) / onCreate(android.os.Bundle) code path, which would otherwise be difficult to force. Choosing this option will probably reveal a number of problems in your application due to not saving state.
Show screen updates    Flashes a momentary pink rectangle on any screen sections that are being redrawn. This is very useful for discovering unnecessary screen drawing.
Show CPU usage   Displays CPU meters at the top of the screen, showing how much the CPU is being used. The top red bar shows overall CPU usage, and the green bar underneath it shows the CPU time spent in compositing the screen. Note: You cannot turn this feature off once it is on, without restarting the emulator.
Show screen FPS    Displays the current frame rate. Mostly useful for games to see the overall frame rate they are achieving. Note: You cannot turn this feature off once it is on without restarting the emulator.
Show background   Displays a background pattern when no activity screens are visible. This typically does not happen, but can happen during debugging.
These settings will be remembered across emulator restarts.
Top Debugging TipsQuick stack dump To obtain a stack dump from emulator, you can log in with adb shell, use "ps" to find the process you want, and then "kill -3 ". The stack trace appears in the log file. Displaying useful info on the emulator screen The device can display useful information such as CPU usage or highlights around redrawn areas. Turn these features on and off in the developer settings window as described in Setting debug and test configurations on the emulator. Getting system state information from the emulator (dumpstate) You can access dumpstate information from the Dalvik Debug Monitor Service tool. See dumpsys and dumpstate on the adb topic page. Getting application state information from the emulator (dumpsys) You can access dumpsys information from the Dalvik Debug Monitor Service tool. See dumpsys and dumpstate on the adb topic page. Getting wireless connectivity information You can get information about wireless connectivity using the Dalvik Debug Monitor Service tool. From the Device menu, select "Dump radio state". Logging Trace Data You can log method calls and other tracing data in an activity by calling android.os.Debug.startMethodTracing(). See Running the Traceview Debugging Program for details. Logging Radio Data By default, radio information is not logged to the system (it is a lot of data). However, you can enable radio logging using the following commands: adb shelllogcat -b radioRunning adb Android ships with a tool called adb that provides various capabilities, including moving and syncing files to the emulator, forwarding ports, and running a UNIX shell on the emulator. See Using adb for details. Getting screen captures from the emulator Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) can capture screenshots from the emulator. Using debugging helper classes Android provides debug helper classes such as util.Log and Debug for your convenience. Building and Installing an Android ApplicationAndroid requires custom build tools to be able to properly build the resource files and other parts of an Android application. Because of this, you must have a specialized build environment for your application.
Custom Android compilation steps include compiling the XML and other resource files, and creating the proper output format. A compiled Android application is an .apk file, which is a compressed file containing .dex files, resource files, raw data files, and other files. You can create a properly structured Android project either from scratch, or from existing source files.
Android does not currently support development of third party applications in native code (C/C++).
The recommended way to develop an Android application is to use Eclipse with the Android plugin, which provides support for building, running, and debugging Android applications.
If you have another IDE, Android provides tools for other IDEs to build and debug Android applications, but they are not as integrated.
Removing an Android ApplicationTo remove an application that you have installed on the emulator, you will need to run adb and delete the .apk file you sent to the emulator when you installed it. Use adb shell to drop into a shell on the device as described in the linked topic, navigate to data/app/, and then remove the file using rm your_app.apk.
Eclipse Tips Executing arbitrary Java expressions in EclipseYou can execute arbitrary code when paused at a breakpoint in Eclipse. For example, when in a function with a String argument called "zip", you can get information about packages and call class methods. You can also invoke arbitrary static methods: for example, entering android.os.Debug.startMethodTracing() will start dmTrace.
Open a code execution window, select Window>Show View>Display from the main menu to open the Display window, a simple text editor. Type your expression, highlight the text, and click the 'J' icon (or CTRL + SHIFT + D) to run your code. The code runs in the context of the selected thread, which must be stopped at a breakpoint or single-step point. (If you suspend the thread manually, you have to single-step once; this doesn't work if the thread is in Object.wait().)
If you are currently paused on a breakpoint, you can simply highlight and execute a piece of source code by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + D.
You can highlight a block of text within the same scope by pressing ALT +SHIFT + UP ARROW to select larger and larger enclosing blocks, or DOWN ARROW to select smaller blocks.
Here are a few sample inputs and responses in Eclipse using the Display window.
Input Response
zip (java.lang.String) /work/device/out/linux-x86-debug/android/app/android_sdk.zip
zip.endsWith(".zip") (boolean) true
zip.endsWith(".jar") (boolean) false
You can also execute arbitrary code when not debugging by using a scrapbook page. Search the Eclipse documentation for "scrapbook".
Running DDMS ManuallyAlthough the recommended way to debug is to use the ADT plugin, you can manually run DDMS and configure Eclipse to debug on port 8700. (Note:Be sure that you have first started DDMS).
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