How to build and debug a native Android executable

Common instructions

• make sure you have an Android phone plugged on a USB port and available to adb
• make sure you have Android SDK installed and configured with adb and ndk-build available on the system PATH

# locate the lldb-server executable in the Android SDK
find $ANDROID_SDK_HOME -name lldb-server

# push the one applicable to your Android device archtecture
adb push __PATH_TO_LLDB_SERVER_IN_ANDROID_SDK_HOME/lldb-server /data/local/tmp/

# run lldb-server on Android in a separate terminal session
adb shell "cd /data/local/tmp && ./lldb-server platform --server --listen localhost:5039"

Debugging on command line (the harder way)

# open a new terminal session and make sure you have 'lldb' available on the host machine

# build the executable
ndk-build

# get into lldb REPL
lldb

# run the following commands
(lldb) platform select remote-android
(lldb) platform connect connect://localhost:5039
(lldb) file libs/__device_archtecture__/main
(lldb) b main.c:5
(lldb) r

# now you should see something similar to the following screen:

For more information, see this page.

On Visual Studio Code (the easiest way)

• Make sure you have CodeLLDB extension installed
• Press F5 🙂 You should see something similar to the following screen: