Difference between revisions of "Android Glossary"
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: Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool. | : Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool. | ||
+ | ; Donut : The code name for the Android version after 1.5 (Cupcake). Which version this will be is not know (as of Sep 2009). | ||
; Dream : Code name for the mobile phone hardware publicly called the t-Mobile G1, in the United States. | ; Dream : Code name for the mobile phone hardware publicly called the t-Mobile G1, in the United States. | ||
Revision as of 12:56, 2 September 2009
Here are some Android terms (some even with definitions!!)
See also the developer glossary at: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/glossary.html
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A
- adb
- Android Debug
- ADP1
- Android Developer Phone 1
- Android
- A robot resembling a human being - the name of the operating system produced by Google for mobile phones. Apparently, Andy Rubin, one of the original founders of Android, Inc. loves robots.
- Android, Inc.
- A company founded by Andy Rubin and others to create a mobile phone operating system. Android, Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005.
- ASE
- Android Scripting Environment
B
- Binder
- An Interprocess Communication (IPC) mechanism. See http://cs736-android.pbworks.com/IPC-Binder and http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/msg/dc0e0e872de9b0d2
- Bionic
- small C library used in Android devices
- Bootchart
- A mechanism to create visual charts of a Linux boot sequence, including the timing of process start and execution.
C,D
- Cupcake
- The code name for Android version 1.5.
- Dalvik
- Virtual Machine in which Android applications are run. This VM executes Dalvik bytecode, which is compiled from programs written in the Java language. Note that the Dalvik VM is not a Java VM (JVM).
- Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool.
- Donut
- The code name for the Android version after 1.5 (Cupcake). Which version this will be is not know (as of Sep 2009).
- Dream
- Code name for the mobile phone hardware publicly called the t-Mobile G1, in the United States.
F, G
- fastboot
- a program which communicates with the developer firmware, and which is capable of loading new software on the ADP1 phone (including re-writing the flash partitions on the device). See Android Fastboot
- FreeType
- An open-source set of fonts and font system
- G1
- The name of the first Android-based mobile phone, from t-Mobile.
- Goldfish
- The name of a virtual ARM platform provided by the emulator.
- Goldfish executes ARM926T instructions and has hooks for input and output -- such as reading key presses from or displaying video output in the emulator. There is a "goldfish" configuration file for compiling the Linux kernel to run with this emulated platform.
- A large web search company, and primary developer of Android
I
- init
- the first user-space program run in the Android system. It is not a standard Linux-style 'init' program (which processes an /etc/inittab file). Rather, it processes a script called init.rc in the root directory of the file system.
- Intent
- A facility to send messages between different Android components. A message is conveyed using an Intent object, which is a data structure holding a description of an operation to be performed, or of something that has happened and is being announced.
J
- Java
- Java is a programming language originally developed by Sun, and used to develop Android applications.
- It is important to note that while the Java language is used for Android applications, the Java bytecode and Java virtual machine are not. for more information, see the entry for Dalvik.
- JDK
- Java Development Kit
L, M
- Linux
- An open source operating system kernel, developed originally by Linus Torvalds, but over time by many thousands of developers worldwide.
- Live-android
- A project to create an Android live-CD, for running Android on generic x86 platforms.
- MSM
- ???
O
- OpenGL ES
- 3D graphics system and API for Android applications
R
- repo
- Android repository manager. This is a wrapper program (written in Python) over the git tool, for managing the multiple git repositories that make up the entire Android code base. See http://source.android.com/download/using-repo
- rild
- Radio-Interface-Link daemon. This is the daemon which handles communication between the rest of the Android system and the "radio interface" (otherwise known as the phone portion of an Android-based mobile phone system). In the simulator, since the phone hardware is not present, there is a program which runs to simulate the radio interface.
S
- Saphire
- SGL
- 2D graphics layer for Android applications
- SQLite
- A powerful and lightweight relational database engine used by the Android system components, and available to all Android applications.
T
- Trout
- ARM linux kernel machine ID for the HTC Dream hardware (used in the t-Mobile G1 and the ADP1)
- See http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/list.php?id=1440
- TARGET_PRODUCT
- An environment variable used by the build system to indicate the product that the software should be built for. This and other TARGET_* variables are set using the choosecombo() function in build/envsetup.sh.
- If not set, the TARGET_* variables will use defaults when you run the 'm' alias, after source-ing build/envsetup.sh into your shell environment. Otherwise, use the choosecombo() function to set them.
- ex: $ cd mydroid ; source build/envsetup.sh ; choosecombo
- The options for TARGET_PRODUCT depend on entries in the AndroidProducts.mk files under build/target/products and vendor/*/*/AndroidProducts.mk in your repository.
W
- wakelocks
- A kernel mechanism for Android power management. When a thread holds a wakelock, the kernel will refrain from entering a low-power state.
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