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opensecura / 3p / openxla / iree / c319c2db6034a5359f73e0e2fe66b81617707b81 / . / tools / android / run_module_app
tree: fae38e51bdc2817bd7b6b44354f1b4afa5e1771b [path history] [tgz]
  1. res/
  2. src/
  3. AndroidManifest.xml.template
  4. build_apk.sh
  5. CMakeLists.txt
  6. README.md
tools/android/run_module_app/README.md

Android App to Run an IREE Bytecode Module

This directory contains configuration to create an Android application that executes a single IREE module as a native activity.

Note that this app is purely for benchmarking/profiling IREE itself. This is not the expected integration path for a real Android application, for which we expect to provide proper Java API and build support.

Native Activity

The app uses Android NativeActivity to bridge IREE core libraries together with the Android system. Native activity allows one to implement an Android Activity purely in C/C++. There are tutorials and examples one can follow to learn about Native Activity.

Android Studio

This app does not contain Gradle configurations. The reason is that we need to package both IREE native libraries and a specific VM module invocation into the app. The procedure cannot be automated much by Android Studio; rather one might need to copy files from different places, rename them, and wire up the build. It's inconvenient. For a developer tool we would like to avoid such friction and thus improve velocity. So a script, build_apk.sh, is provided to automate the process.

But the script itself requires an Android SDK/NDK installation structure that matches Android Studio. So it's easier to just install Android Studio to manage Android SDK/NDK. The script will use proper tools in Android SDK/NDK to build and package the final APK file.

Build the APK

In general, we need to

  1. Build the iree_run_module_app shared library following normal C++ build process.
  2. Package the shared library together with an IREE VM FlatBuffer, its entry function, input buffers, and the HAL driver into an Android app, following a certain directory hierarchy. Specifically,
    1. Generate AndroidManifest.xml from the template by providing the proper target Android API level.
    2. Copy the VM FlatBuffer as assets/module.vmfb, write the entry function input buffers, and HAL driver into assets/entry_function.txt, assets/inputs.txt, and assets/device.txt, respectively.
    3. Copy the shared library under lib/<android-abi>/.
    4. Compile resources under res/ directory into an Android DEX file.
    5. Package all of the above into an APK file.
    6. Properly align and sign the APK file.

Run on Android

When started on Android, the app will read the contents in assets to get the VM FlatBuffer and invocation information and run it.