The SDK tools are installed with the SDK starter package and are periodically updated. The SDK tools are required if you are developing Android applications. The most important SDK tools include the Android SDK Manager (android sdk), the AVD Manager (android avd) the emulator (emulator), and the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (ddms). A short summary of some frequently-used SDK tools is provided below.
The AVD Manager provides a graphical user interface in which you can create and manage Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) that run in the Android Emulator.
A QEMU-based device-emulation tool that you can use to debug and test your applications in an actual Android run-time environment.
Helps you create a disk image that you can use with the emulator, to simulate the presence of an external storage card (such as an SD card).
Lets you manage AVDs, projects, and the installed components of the SDK.
Provides a visual representation of the layout's View hierarchy with performance information for each node in the layout, and a magnified view of the display to closely examine the pixels in your layout.
The Android lint tool is a static code analysis tool that checks your Android project source files for potential bugs and optimization improvements.
Lets you manage SDK packages, such as installed platforms and system images.
Lets you access the SQLite data files created and used by Android applications.
Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile command line tool that lets you communicate with an emulator instance or connected Android-powered device. It also provides access to the device shell for advanced command-line operations.
Lets you debug Android applications.
Android Device Monitor is a stand-alone tool that provides a graphical user interface for several Android application debugging and analysis tools.
Generates graphical call-stack diagrams from trace log files. The tool uses the Graphviz Dot utility to create the graphical output, so you need to install Graphviz before running dmtracedump. For more information on using dmtracedump, see Profiling with Traceview and dmtracedump
Converts the HPROF file that is generated by the Android SDK tools to a standard format so you can view the file in a profiling tool of your choice.
Lets you analyze the execution of your application in the context of system processes, to help diagnose display and performance issues.
Provides a graphical viewer for execution logs saved by your application.
Allows you to build encrypted and unencrypted APK expansion files in Opaque Binary Blob (OBB) format.
Shrinks, optimizes, and obfuscates your code by removing unused code and renaming classes, fields, and methods with semantically obscure names.
Optimizes .apk files by ensuring that all uncompressed data starts with a particular alignment relative to the start of the file. This should always be used to align .apk files after they have been signed.
Allows you to easily create a NinePatch graphic using a WYSIWYG editor. It also previews stretched versions of the image, and highlights the area in which content is allowed.
A command line utility that lets you encode PNG images to the ETC1 compression standard and decode ETC1 compressed images back to PNG.
Allows you to capture OpenGL ES commands and frame by frame images to help you understand how your graphics commands are being executed.