The latest version of this document is available at https://android.googlesource.com/platform/ndk/+/master/docs/Testing.md.
The toolchains shipped in the NDK are not built as a part of the NDK build process. Instead they are built separately and checked into git as prebuilts that are repackaged when shipped in the NDK. This applies to both Clang and GCC.
Both toolchains are built separately. An artifact of the build is a tarball of the compiler for distribution. That artifact is unpacked into a location in the Android tree and checked in. The NDK build step for each toolchain simply packs up the contents of the directory.
Note: Any changes to either toolchain need to be tested in the platform and the NDK. The platform and the NDK both get their toolchains from the same build.
This process is far too manual. checkbuild.py should be updated (or additional scripts added) to ease this process.
Clang‘s build process is described in the platform’s ReadmeAndroid.md. Note that Clang cannot be built from the NDK tree. The output tarball is extracted to prebuilts/clang/host/$HOST/clang-$BUILD_NUMBER. checkbuild.py --module clang repackages this as-is as $OUT_DIR/dist/llvm-$HOST_TAG.zip.
To test a Clang you just built:
$ export CLANG_PREBUILTS=`realpath ../prebuilts/clang/host/linux-x86` $ rm -r $CLANG_PREBUILTS/clang-dev $ tar xf path/to/clang-dev-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 -C $CLANG_PREBUILTS # Edit ndk/build/tools/build-llvm.py and change the version to 'clang-dev'. $ ../prebuilts/ndk/symlink-clang.py dev $ ./checkbuild.py # Run tests.
For details about running tests, see Testing.md.
This installs the new Clang into the prebuilts directory so it can be packaged by the NDK build. The symlink-clang.py line updates the symlinks in prebuilts NDK to point at the new Clang. The Clang in prebuilts/ndk is used for building libc++ in the NDK. The difference between it and prebuilts/clang is the directory layout, which differs so that ndk-build can use it.
If you need to make changes to Clang after running the above steps, future updates can be done more quickly with:
$ rm -r $CLANG_PREBUILTS/clang-dev $ tar xf path/to/clang-dev-linux-x86_64.bz2 -C $CLANG_PREBUILTS $ ./checkbuild.py --module clang --force-package # Run tests.
We don‘t need to rebuild the whole NDK since we’ve already built most of it. Note that any NDK modules that were built with Clang won‘t be rebuilt (e.g. libc++), so this is only going to be useful if you’re debugging a test.
These steps need to be run after installing the new prebuilt from the build server to prebuilts/clang (see the Clang docs).
# Edit ndk/build/tools/build-llvm.py and update the build number. $ ../prebuilts/ndk/symlink/clang.py # Latest version autodetected. $ ./checkbuid.py # Run tests.
GCC's build process is described in GCC's README.md. Unlike Clang, GCC can be built from the NDK tree. The output tarball is extracted to prebuilts/ndk/current/toolchains/$TOOLCHAIN/prebuilt/$HOST_TAG. checkbuild.py --module gcc repackages this as-is as $OUT_DIR/dist/gcc-$ARCH-$HOST_TAG.zip.
Note that GCC is a bit more complicated to update than Clang. prebuilts/ndk contains only a prebuilt GCC, not prebuilt target gnustl (GNU's libstdc++, referred to as gnustl in Android). As such, changes submitted to toolchain/gcc will affect the gnustl build (checkbuild.py --module gnustl) will take effect immediately.
To test a GCC you just built:
$ export INSTALL_DIR=`realpath ../prebuilts/ndk/current` $ export TOOLCHAIN_DIR=$INSTALL_DIR/toolchains/$HOST_TAG $ rm -r $TOOLCHAIN_PATH/$TOOLCHAIN $ unzip ../out/dist/gcc-$ARCH-$HOST.zip -d $TOOLCHAIN_DIR $ ./checkbuild.py # Run tests.
We‘re building an NDK and then replacing it’s GCC with our own.
For details about running tests, see Testing.md.
Additional changes will not require a full checkbuild.py. Instead:
$ ./checkbuild.py --module gcc $ ./checkbuild.py --module gcclibs $ ./checkbuild.py --module gnustl --force-package # Run tests.
$ ../prebuilts/ndk/update-gcc.py $BUILD_NUMBER $ ./checkbuild.py # Run tests.