The ARM-64 architecture (`arm64-v8a`) requires at least level 21 of Android API.
The default entry-point of the Docker image, [`paddle/scripts/docker/build_android.sh`](https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle/blob/develop/paddle/scripts/docker/build_android.sh) generates the [Android cross-compiling standalone toolchain](https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/standalone_toolchain.html) based on the argument: `ANDROID_ABI` or `ANDROID_API`. For information about other configuration arguments, please continue reading.
The above command generates and outputs the inference library in `$PWD/install_android` and puts third-party libraries in `$PWD/install_android/third_party`.
Android NDK includes everything we need to build the [*standalone toolchain*](https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/standalone_toolchain.html), which in then used to build PaddlePaddle for Android. (We plan to remove the intermediate stage of building the standalone toolchain in the near future.)
CMake supports [choosing the toolchain](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-toolchains.7.html#cross-compiling). PaddlePaddle provides [`android.cmake`](https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle/blob/develop/cmake/cross_compiling/android.cmake), which configures the Android cross-compiling toolchain for CMake. `android.cmake` is not required for CMake >= 3.7, which support Android cross-compiling. PaddlePaddle detects the CMake version, for those newer than 3.7, it uses [the official version](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.7/manual/cmake-toolchains.7.html#cross-compiling).
- `CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME` must be `Android`. This tells PaddlePaddle's CMake system to cross-compile third-party dependencies. This also changes some other CMake arguments like `WITH_GPU=OFF`, `WITH_AVX=OFF`, `WITH_PYTHON=OFF`, and `WITH_RDMA=OFF`.
- `WITH_C_API` must be `ON`, to build the C-based inference library for Android.
- `WITH_SWIG_PY` must be `OFF` because the Android platform doesn't support SWIG-based API.
- `ANDROID_STANDALONE_TOOLCHAIN`: the absolute path of the Android standalone toolchain, or the path relative to the CMake build directory. PaddlePaddle's CMake extensions would derive the cross-compiler, sysroot and Android API level from this argument.
- `ANDROID_TOOLCHAIN`: could be `gcc` or `clang`. The default value is `clang`.
- For CMake >= 3.7, it should anyway be `clang`. For older versions, it could be `gcc`.
- Android's official `clang` requires `glibc` >= 2.15.
- `ANDROID_ABI`: could be `armeabi-v7a` or `arm64-v8a`. The default value is `armeabi-v7a`.
- `ANDROID_NATIVE_API_LEVEL`: could be derived from the value of `ANDROID_STANDALONE_TOOLCHAIN`.
- `ANROID_ARM_MODE`:
- could be `ON` or `OFF`, and defaults to `ON`, when `ANDROID_ABI=armeabi-v7a`;
- no need to specify when `ANDROID_ABI=arm64-v8a`.
- `ANDROID_ARM_NEON`: indicates if to use NEON instructions.
- could be `ON` or `OFF`, and defaults to `ON`, when `ANDROID_ABI=armeabi-v7a`;
- no need to specify when `ANDROID_ABI=arm64-v8a`.
- `USE_EIGEN_FOR_BLAS`: indicates if using Eigen. Could be `ON` or `OFF`, defaults to `OFF`.
- `HOST_C/CXX_COMPILER`: specifies the host compiler, which is used to build the host-specific protoc and target-specific OpenBLAS. It defaults to the value of the environment variable `CC`, or `cc`.