Android build instructions

Requirements

Crosswalk for Android, just like Chromium for Android, is only expected to be built on a 64-bit Linux installation. It is possible that it also works on OS X, but it is not supported by either the Crosswalk Project or the Chromium project.

These instructions assume you have already downloaded depot_tools and that it is in your PATH environment variable. See the prerequisites page for further information.

Configure gyp

Older (< 23) Crosswalk versions are based on Chromium releases that use gyp as their meta-build system.

If you want to build one of those versions, you must follow the section Crosswalk 22 and earlier: gyp setup at the end of this page before proceeding.

Fetching the source code

Before calling gclient sync below, you have to set the XWALK_OS_ANDROID environment variable so that all Android-specific git repositories are fetched before the build.
```
 export XWALK_OS_ANDROID=1
```
Choose where you want to download and build Crosswalk. If you are using gyp and opted for having a chromium.gyp_env file, this directory must contain that file.
```
cd /path/to/crosswalk-checkout
```
Generate a .gclient file. This tells gclient where to fetch Crosswalk from. It assumes depot_tools is in your PATH variable.
```
 gclient config --name src/xwalk https://github.com/crosswalk-project/crosswalk.git
```
Edit this newly-created .gclient file, and add the following to the bottom:
```
 target_os = ['android']
```
Run gclient sync to fetch Crosswalk, all other git repositories it depends on as well as any additional helper files. If you are using Crosswalk 22 or earlier, this will also automatically run the gyp_xwalk script in the end.
```
 gclient sync
```
Do not worry if gyp_xwalk fails due to missing dependencies; installing them is covered in a later section, after which you can run gyp_xwalk manually again.

Dependency installation

The Crosswalk for Android build requires several packages to be present on your Linux installation. All dependencies are checked for at configuration time -- either when gyp_xwalk or gn gen (or gn args) is run, so if something is missing on your system you will get an error before you are able to start building.

If you are using Ubuntu or another Debian-based distribution, you can use Chromium's install-build-deps-android.sh script to install all dependencies:

cd /path/to/crosswalk-checkout/src
./build/install-build-deps-android.sh

Users of other distros can take a look at src/build/install-build-deps.sh and src/build/install-build-deps-android.sh to see which packages are listed and install the analogous versions shipped by their distributions.

If you are using gyp, make sure you call gyp_xwalk again once everything has been installed.

Crosswalk 23 and later: GN setup

Starting with Crosswalk 23, GN has replaced gyp as the meta-build system for both Chromium and Crosswalk. Its setup is a bit different compared to gyp, as chromium.gyp_env (and the GYP_DEFINES environment variable) does not have any effect, and the gyp_xwalk is not used.

Instead, you use the gn binary to both edit a file with your settings as well as generate the files required by Ninja to build.

In order to build Crosswalk, you need to have at least two lines in your settings to pull some default variables we set:

cd /path/to/crosswalk-checkout
gn args out/Default

A text editor will be shown, where you must add the following line:

import("//xwalk/build/android.gni")
target_os = "android"

You can add other settings after this statement, such as is_debug = false for a release build or target_cpu = "x64" to create a 64-bit IA build. By default, target_cpu is set to arm, which creates a 32-bit ARM build.

Once you have done this once, you can later call gn gen out/Default to just regenerate the ninja files based on your existing settings if you need to (most of the time, this will be done automatically for you when building).

See Chromium's page about GN for more information, including other common settings.

Crosswalk 22 and earlier: gyp setup

Up to Crosswalk 22, both Chromium and Crosswalk used gyp as a meta-build system that generated the actual build system files used by ninja.

gyp accepts flags to change its behavior, and you must set some of those flags in order to create an Android build.

There are two ways to define those flags:

Create a file called chromium.gyp_env on the directory where you will later call gclient config and gclient sync (so the one above src/). It needs to look like this:
```
 {
   'GYP_DEFINES': 'key1=value1 key2=value2',
 }
```
Using export in your shell to set the GYP_DEFINES environment variable.

The very least you need to add to your GYP_DEFINES is OS=android. The default build will target 32-bit ARM; if you want to target a different architecture, you must also set the target_arch variable to ia32, x64 or arm64. For example, if you are using chromium.gyp_env, it should look like this to create an Android build for 64-bit Intel processors.

{
  'GYP_DEFINES': 'OS=android target_arch=x64',
}

Note that at the moment it is not possible to target multiple architectures in a single build: if you want to build for both ARM and x86, you need to have two separate builds.

Building Crosswalk

Once either gyp or GN has been properly configured, it is time to build Crosswalk.

cd C:\path\to\crosswalk-checkout\src
ninja -C YOUR-BUILD-DIR xwalk

You should replace YOUR-BUILD-DIR above with the appropriate directory created with gyp or GN: With gyp and a 32-bit build, it's out/Release. With gyp and a 64-bit build, it's out/Release_x64. * With GN, it's whatever directory you chose, such as out/Default.

YOUR-TARGET needs to be replaced with the kind of target you want to build (more than one can be passed in the same invocation). For example: xwalk_core_library creates a directory called xwalk_core_library in YOUR-BUILD-DIR with an architecture-specific Crosswalk library for use when embedding Crosswalk in a project. xwalk_runtime_lib_apk will generate a file called XWalkRuntimeLib.apk in YOUR-BUILD-DIR/apks containing Crosswalk's runtime library (which can act as the runtime for applications built using Crosswalk's shared mode). * xwalk_app_template_apk creates a sample web app APK for testing. It is located in YOUR-BUID-DIR/apks/XWalkAppTemplate.apk.

Chromium information

Most of the instructions described in this page are similar to Chromium's own instructions. We suggest you take a look at its instructions as well; it might help solve any questions you have after reading our documentation.

Chromium Android build instructions