The Android NDK (Native Development Kit) is a toolset that allows developers to write parts of their Android apps using native code languages like C and C++[1][2][3]. The main purpose of the NDK is to optimize app performance by leveraging native code for computationally intensive tasks[2].
To use the NDK, developers need to[2]:
Install and configure the NDK in their development environment by downloading it from the official website and adding its path to Android Studio.
Create a new directory named 'jni' within the project's 'app/src/main' folder to store C/C++ source files and header files.
Write native C/C++ code implementing the desired functionality.
Configure the build.gradle file to include the NDK settings and target ABIs.
There are two main reasons to use the Android NDK[2][3]:
Critical performance: If an app has computationally intensive code, like gaming, signal processing, or physics simulations, using native code can provide noticeable performance improvements over Java.
Code reuse: The NDK allows integrating existing native libraries written in C/C++ without rewriting them in Java.
