CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidlinuxandroid-ndk
موسى شاور
موسى شاور

Reputation: 159

Can a shared library (.so) file built for linux be included/linked and used in an Android application?

I am working on a project in which I need to include NGSpice simulation library in an Android application and of course be able to use it.

I tried including the NGSpice windows DLL in my android application using SWIG and Android NDK, but it turned out that it is not even possible, so now I started to think about building NGSpice as a shared library for linux.

And now my question is, can I use the linux shared library for NGSpice as it is in my Android application, or does it need to built differently somehow to work on my Android application.

Thanks.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3461

Answers (1)

Chris Stratton
Chris Stratton

Reputation: 40397

No. Android typically has two key differences from a traditional linux:

1) It uses the Bionic C library and dynamic linker, instead of a more traditional set such as glibc.

2) Android is typically run on an ARM or 32-bit x86 processor (or in rare cases MIPS), while your desktop Linux library might be either 64-bit or 32-bit x86 code.

If you build a .so compatible with the architecture of the machine and with bionic's system library functions and dynamic linker, then it should be workable.

Alternatively, if you have something for a compatible architecture but the wrong libc, it may be possible to write your own loader to get it into memory in working form on a secured device, or on a rooted device it is possible to run a more traditional linux userspace (typically Debian derived) in a chroot. But neither of these would be easy to integrate into an Android application - for the latter you'd almost definitely have to pass work over via interprocess communication, and that might prove easier in the former case as well.

Your only really endorsed solution is to rebuild the library from source, using either the ndk build system, or an ndk-generated "stand alone toolchain" and the library's current build system.

Upvotes: 15

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