1 page.title=Building and Running Overview 2 @jd:body 3 4 <div id="qv-wrapper"> 5 <div id="qv"> 6 <h2>See also</h2> 7 <ol> 8 <li><a href="{@docRoot}tools/building/building-studio.html"> 9 Building Your Project from Android Studio</a></li> 10 <li><a href="{@docRoot}tools/building/building-cmdline.html"> 11 Building Your Project from the Command Line</a></li> 12 <li><a href="{@docRoot}sdk/installing/studio-build.html"> 13 Build System</a></li> 14 </ol> 15 </div> 16 </div> 17 18 19 <p>The Android build process provides project and module build settings so that 20 your Android modules are compiled and packaged into <code>.apk</code> files, the containers 21 for your application binaries, based on your build settings. The apk file for each app contains all 22 of the information necessary to run your application on a device or emulator, such as compiled 23 <code>.dex</code> files (<code>.class</code> files converted to Dalvik byte code), a binary version 24 of the <code>AndroidManifest.xml</code> file, compiled resources (<code>resources.arsc</code>) and 25 uncompiled resource files for your application.</p> 26 27 <p>To run an application on an emulator or device, the application must be signed using debug or 28 release mode. You typically want to sign your application in debug mode when you develop and test 29 your application, because the build system uses a debug key with a known password so you do not have 30 to enter it every time you build. When you are ready to release the application to Google 31 Play, you must sign the application in release mode, using your own private key.</p> 32 33 <p>If you are using Android development tools, the build system can sign the application for you 34 when build your app for debugging. You must obtain a certificate to sign your app when you build 35 and app for release. For more information on signing applications, see 36 <a href="{@docRoot}tools/publishing/app-signing.html">Signing Your Applications</a>.</p> 37 38 <p>The following diagram depicts the components involved in building and running an application:</p> 39 40 <img src="{@docRoot}images/build-simplified.png" /> 41
