Difference between revisions of "Android Glossary"
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Revision as of 14:35, 22 June 2010
Here are some Android terms (some even with definitions!!)
See also the developer glossary at: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/glossary.html
Back to Android Portal
A
- aapt
- Android Asset Packaging Tool - a tool for creating, inspecting and modifying Android application packages.
- adb
- Android Debug Bridge - a tool for communicating between the host and a target Android system (including an emulator running on the host). See http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html
- 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.
- AndroidManifest.xml
- A file describing the contents, permissions and other attributes of an Android application package. See http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/manifest-intro.html
- 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. See Using Bootchart on Android
C
- Cliq
- The US name for the Motorola Android phone.
- Cupcake
- The code name for Android version 1.5.
D
- 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 Android version 1.6
- Dream
- Code name for the mobile phone hardware publicly called the t-Mobile G1, in the United States.
- Droid
- The name for an upcoming Android phone by Motorola (I believe this is the high-end phone, and Cliq is the low-end phone?)
E
- Eclair
- The code name for Android version 2.1
F
- 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
- Froyo
- Frozen Yogurt - The code name for Android version 2.2
G
- G1
- The name of the first Android-based mobile phone, from t-Mobile.
- Galaxy
- The name of the first Samsung Android phone
- Gingerbread ; The code name for Android version 3.0(??)
- 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
- 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.
- logcat
- A command to view messages in one of the system logs. See Android logger
M
- manifest file
- See AndroidManifest.xml
- mahimahi
- The machine name used in the kernel for the development board used for the Nexus One product.
- MSM
- Mobile Station Modem. Chipset manufactured by Qualcomm. Can for instance be found in cell phones containing the Snapdragon chipsets (HTC Desire/Nexus One).
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
- 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.
- toolbox
- The name of a multi-function program in the Android system. This program contains code for the single program toolbox to act like several different programs and utilities. Normally 'toolbox' is stored in /system/bin, and is symlinked to other names. It uses argv[0] to determine which program to behave like, when run. It is very similar in this regard to 'busybox', which another multi-function program used in many other embedded Linux systems.
- 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
V
- vold
- volume daemon - a process on an android system responsible for managing mounting and unmounting file system (volumes)
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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