raylib-d Android build template

This is a template for building a raylib-d game for android, please note that the solution is extremely wacky and anything can fail.

Requirements

• Android NDK
• Gradle
• Linux LDC (Not tested on Windows/MacOS)
• Android LDC
• A Raylib .a file compiled for Android (Depending on target archtitecture)
• dmd or ldc2 on your host, to run build-android.d itself via rdmd/dmd -run (this is separate from the Android-targeting LDC above)

Note

ldc2-aarch64 includes the x86_64 libs, so is still needed for x86_64

Considerations

This template currently assumes a -betterC-style build.

While D and Phobos can theoretically run on Android, this setup does not ship Android-compatible druntime/Phobos libraries and i don't know how to properly setup a Phobos build for that (on arm it does not but, and on x86_64 it builds but the app itself crashes), so enabling them will result in linker errors such as:

ld.lld: error: /usr/lib/ldc_rt.dso.o is incompatible with aarch64linux
ld.lld: error: /usr/lib/libphobos2-ldc-shared.so is incompatible with aarch64linux
ld.lld: error: /usr/lib/libdruntime-ldc-shared.so is incompatible with aarch64linux

Prepare

Add the android setup to your dub.json

	"configurations": [
...
		{
			"name": "android",
			"targetType": "dynamicLibrary",
			"targetName": "main",
			"dependencies": {
				"raylib-d": "~>6.0.1"
			},
			"subConfigurations": {
				"raylib-d": "library"
			},
			"libs-posix": []
		}
	]

Compile Raylib

1. Clone and build raylib

git clone https://github.com/raysan5/raylib
cd raylib/src

make PLATFORM=PLATFORM_ANDROID \
     ANDROID_NDK=/path/to/your/android-ndk \
     ANDROID_ARCH=arm64 \
     ANDROID_API_VERSION=29

Replace aarch64 to x86_64 or arm if needed

2. Place your raylib in raylib-android according to the desired archtitecture, for example:

-> tree raylib-android/
raylib-android/
├── arm64-v8a
│   └── libraylib.a
└── x86_64
    └── libraylib.a

Define environment variables

export LDC_ANDROID_AARCH64_HOME=/home/user/ldc2-aarch64
export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=/opt/android-ndk
export RAYLIB_LIB_DIR=/home/user/raylib-android/
export ANDROID_OUTPUT_DIR=/path/to/your/apk/setup/

Replace those paths with the actual paths, or copy asetup.example to asetup.sh and edit it. build-android.d loads simple KEY=VALUE lines from asetup.sh automatically if the file exists, and expands $VAR, ${VAR}, and a leading ~ (e.g. $USER, $HOME) the same way a shell would.

Try to build

The build helper is a native D script (build-android.d), no shell interpreter required beyond your normal system tools (dub, the NDK, llvm-strip).

Run it with rdmd (bundled with DMD/LDC) or compile it once and reuse the binary:

rdmd build-android.d arm64-v8a # or x86_64 / armeabi-v7a

Equivalent, using dmd/ldc directly instead of rdmd:

dmd -run build-android.d arm64-v8a

Building for other architectures

The first argument selects the target ABI. Supported values (aliases in parentheses):

ABI	Aliases	Required env var
arm64-v8a	aarch64, arm64	LDC_ANDROID_AARCH64_HOME
x86_64	amd64	LDC_ANDROID_AARCH64_HOME*
armeabi-v7a	arm, arm32	LDC_ANDROID_ARMV7A_HOME

x86_64 builds use the same ldc2-*-android-aarch64 package — see the note above under Requirements.

Defaults to arm64-v8a if no argument is given:

rdmd build-android.d # arm64-v8a

rdmd build-android.d x86_64 # x86_64

rdmd build-android.d armeabi-v7a # armeabi-v7a

To build for multiple architectures in one go just call it once per ABI, Each run writes its output to android/app/src/main/jniLibs/<ABI>/libmain.so, so subsequent runs for different ABIs don't overwrite each other. The resulting jniLibs/ tree can then be picked up as is by a single Gradle build producing a multi-ABI APK/AAB.

gradle wrapper # You may need to get gradlew jar first time

gradlew assembleDebug

Use it as a submodule

This project can be used as submodule:

git submodule add https://github.com/zariep-software/raylib-d-android-template.git abuild

so then you call

rdmd abuild/build-android.d arm64-v8a

More Information

More information about setting up a game for android in raylib-d (e.g. Setting up / troubleshoot things like rotation, Touch screen or screen size) available on the wiki