An Introduction to the Android NDK

Android developers should be familiar with the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), but this recent article from Viacheslav Titov at the Eleks Software research and development blog takes a look at the lesser known Native Development Kit (NDK) for Android. The Android NDK is not used all that commonly, as it has limited scenarios for use - low-level programming, or using C/C++ libraries, for example - and Titov spends a lot of time on the Java Native Interface (JNI).

Titov's article is only an introduction to the Android NDK, but it is detailed and covers a lot of ground. It acts as a tutorial and provides code snippets and instructions on how to get started, but also includes more general overview information that may not be apparent to developers new to the NDK, such as changes in error handling and the use of UTF-8.

Any Android developer looking to explore the Android NDK should take a look at Titov's full article. There is a lot to work with, and given the lack of resources for the NDK, it's a great place to start.