Building GDAL as a self-contained *.AAR for Android development.

• UNIX OS
• libtool
• make
• ninja
• ant
• swig
• C++ compiler (g++ or clang should work)
• autoconf (installed by default on Linux, but not OSX)
• automake (installed by default on Linux, but not OSX)
• (It's possible I'm missing something, but this is all I found/can think of)

Clone this repository (make sure to include the --recursive-modules flag!):
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/paamand/GDAL.git

Install Android Studio: https://developer.android.com/studio/install

• Be sure to install the 32-bit packages it needs if you're on Linux

Install Android SDKs:

• Android Studio > Tools > SDK Manager OR Android Studio Welcome Screen > Configure > SDK Manager
  • SDK Platforms should have the latest Android API installed - currently 9.0(Pie)
  • SDK Tools should include:
    • Android SDK Build-Tools
    • LLDB
    • CMake
    • Android SDK Platform-Tools
    • Android SDK Tools
    • NDK

Get SDK/JDK locations and select the embedded JDK:

• Android Studio > File > Project Structure OR Android Studio Welcome Screen > Project Defaults > Project Structure
  • Make sure that Use embedded JDK is checked
  • Write down or copy/paste the JDK location and the Android SDK location
    • For me, this was /home/caleb/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/AndroidStudio/ch-0/182.5264788/jre and /home/caleb/Android/Sdk respectively

• Open a terminal and navigate to the project folder, e.g. ~/GDAL/gdal. Then run the install.sh script with the minSdkVersion and NDK root as arguments: ~/GDAL/gdal$ ./../submodules/install.sh ~/Android/Sdk/ndk-bundle 21.
  • If this does not run the /submodules/install.sh installation script, jump to the section below.
• Then open Android Studio 3.0+ and build the normal debug/release types to create the .aar, to be found in: ~/GDAL/gdal/build/outputs/aar/

• Open a terminal
  • Navigate to this repository (i.e., cd ~/GDAL)
  • Set these environment variables:
    • JAVA_HOME=[Embedded JDK location] && export JAVA_HOME
    • ANDROID_HOME=[Android SDK location] && export ANDROID_HOME
  • Navigate to ~/GDAL/gdal folder and enter the following: - ./../submodules/install.sh "[Android NDK location]" "21" 2>&1 | tee gdal-install.log - If this also fails, please share the log file - The NDK location is usually $ANDROID_HOME/ndk-bundle or ~/Android/Sdk/ndk-bundle 21 (OS dependent) - If not, it can be found in the GDAL/local.properties file
  • Run ./gradlew build
    • This should produce the gdal-release.aar and gdal-debug.aar files in GDAL/gdal/build/outputs/aar/

The .aar files (gdal-release.aar and gdal-debug.aar) are self-contained with arm-v7s/x86 and arm64/x86_64 compiled libs and java wrappers and can be used directly on other projects. Clean AF.