docs/changelogs/Changelog-r23.md

# Changelog

Report issues to [GitHub].

For Android Studio issues, follow the docs on the [Android Studio site].

If you're a build system maintainer that needs to use the tools in the NDK
directly, see the [build system maintainers guide].

[GitHub]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues
[Android Studio site]: http://tools.android.com/filing-bugs
[build system maintainers]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/ndk/+/master/docs/BuildSystemMaintainers.md

## Announcements

* GNU binutils, excluding the GNU Assembler (GAS), has been removed. GAS will be
  removed in the next release. If you are building with `-fno-integrated-as`,
  file bugs if anything is preventing you from removing that flag. See
  [Clang Migration Notes] for advice about making assembly compatible with LLVM.

* Support for GDB has ended. GDB will be removed in the next release. Use LLDB
  instead. Note that `ndk-gdb` uses LLDB by default.

* NDK r23 is the last release that will support non-Neon. Beginning with NDK
  r24, the armeabi-v7a libraries in the sysroot will be built with Neon. A very
  small number of very old devices do not support Neon so most apps will not
  notice aside from the performance improvement.

* Jelly Bean (APIs 16, 17, and 18) will not be supported in the next NDK
  release. The minimum OS supported by the NDK for r24 will be KitKat (API level
  19).

[Clang Migration Notes]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/ndk/+/master/docs/ClangMigration.md

## r23c

* Update LLVM to clang-r416183c2, based on LLVM 12 development.
  * [Issue 1590]: Fixed LLDB crashes when calling help on unknown commands.
  * [Issue 1608]: Fixed crash in vector conversions.
  * [Issue 1619]: Fixed performance regression in arm64 vectorization.
  * [Issue 1645]: Fixed crash caused by openmp master/critical pragmas.
  * [Issue 1672]: Fixed armeabi-v7a libunwind.a to be compatible with vfpv3-d16
    (remember that this is the last release that will support that FPU setting).
* [Issue 1410]: Fix ndk-build for Apple M1.
* [Issue 1546]: Universal binaries (M1 support) for make (affects ndk-build).
* [Issue 1547]: ndk-build now uses Python 3 internally, improving M1 support.
* [Issue 1577]: Universal binaries (M1 support) for shader-tools (vulkan
  compilers).
* [Issue 1569]: Fix `-fno-integrated-as` for Linux and Darwin hosts by making
  GAS symlink relative
* [Issue 1589]: Fix incorrect API level check for `-Wl,--no-rosegment` in
  ndk-build and CMake.
* [Issue 1593]: Improved ndk-which to fall back to LLVM tools when the GNU names
  are used. For example, `ndk-which strip` will now return the path to
  `llvm-strip` instead of nothing.
* [Issue 1610]: Fix `ANDROID_NATIVE_API_LEVEL` CMake variable when using the
  non-legacy toolchain file.
* [Issue 1618]: Fix behavior of `ANDROID_CPP_FEATURES` with the new toolchain
  file.
* [Issue 1634]: Fixed the build rule for the libshaderc_combined target.
* [Issue 1656]: The new CMake toolchain file now ignores `ANDROID_ARM_MODE` when
  it is passed for ABIs other than armeabi-v7a like the legacy toolchain file
  did. With CMake 3.22 it is an error to set `CMAKE_ANDROID_ARM_MODE` for other
  ABIs, so this fixes a potential incompatibility between the legacy and new
  toolchains when using CMake 3.22+.
* [Issue 1693]: The NDK's toolchain file for CMake (`android.toolchain.cmake`)
  defaults to the legacy toolchain file for all versions of CMake. The new
  toolchain file can still be enabled using
  `-DANDROID_USE_LEGACY_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=OFF`.

[Issue 1410]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1410
[Issue 1546]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1546
[Issue 1577]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1577
[Issue 1589]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1589
[Issue 1590]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1590
[Issue 1593]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1593
[Issue 1608]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1608
[Issue 1610]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1610
[Issue 1618]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1618
[Issue 1619]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1619
[Issue 1634]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1634
[Issue 1645]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1645
[Issue 1656]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1656
[Issue 1672]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1672
[Issue 1693]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1693

## r23b

* Update LLVM to clang-r416183c1, based on LLVM 12 development.
  * [Issue 1540]: Fixed compiler crash when using coroutines.
  * [Issue 1544]: Now uses universal binaries for M1 Macs.
  * [Issue 1551]: Prevent each translation unit from receiving its own copy of
    emulated thread-local global variables.
  * [Issue 1555]: Fixed compiler crash for armeabi-v7a.
* [Issue 1492]: ndk-build.cmd: Stop using make's `-O` (`--output-sync`) flag on
  Windows to avoid `fcntl(): Bad file descriptor` error.
* [Issue 1553]: Updated sysroot to latest Android 12.
* [Issue 1569]: Fixed `-fno-integrated-as` not being able to find the assembler.
* CMake changes:
  * [Issue 1536]: Make optimization flags used with CMake more consistent.
    Historically thumb release builds used `-Oz`, but AGP switched to using
    `RelWithDebInfo` for release builds in the latest release which was not
    using `-Oz`. To reduce per-arch differences and behavior differences
    compared to CMake's defaults, `-Oz` use was removed. You may see code size
    increases for armeabi-v7a due to this, but also increased optimization. To
    restore the prior behavior, add `-Oz` to your cflags.
  * [Issue 1560]: Fixed pull-up of unsupported API levels when using the new
    CMake toolchain file. This affects CMake 3.21 and
    `ANDROID_USE_LEGACY_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=ON` use cases, and was the common case
    for AGP users with a `minSdkVersion` below 21.
  * [Issue 1573]: Fixed `ANDROID_USE_LEGACY_TOOLCHAIN_FILE` not being obeyed
    during CMake try-compile.
  * [Issue 1581]: Added workaround for [CMake Issue 22647], which was causing
    `MINGW` to be incorrectly defined by CMake when building for Android on a
    Windows host. This only affected those using the Android toolchain file when
    CMake 3.21 or newer was used. This likely was not a regression for users not
    using the Android toolchain. The change will fix both use cases.

[CMake Issue 22647]: https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/issues/22647
[Issue 1492]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1492
[Issue 1536]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1536
[Issue 1540]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1540
[Issue 1544]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1544
[Issue 1547]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1547
[Issue 1551]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1551
[Issue 1553]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1553
[Issue 1555]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1555
[Issue 1560]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1560
[Issue 1569]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1569
[Issue 1573]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1573
[Issue 1581]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1581

## Changes

* Includes Android 12 APIs.
* Updated LLVM to clang-r416183b, based on LLVM 12 development.
  * [Issue 1047]: Fixes crash when using ASan with the CFI unwinder.
  * [Issue 1096]: Includes support for [Polly]. Enable by adding `-mllvm -polly`
    to your cflags.
  * [Issue 1230]: LLVM's libunwind is now used instead of libgcc for all
    architectures rather than just 32-bit Arm.
  * [Issue 1231]: LLVM's libclang_rt.builtins is now used instead of libgcc.
  * [Issue 1406]: Fixes crash with Neon intrinsic.
* Vulkan validation layer source and binaries are no longer shipped in the NDK.
  The latest are now posted directly to [GitHub](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-ValidationLayers/releases).
* Vulkan tools source is also removed, specifically vulkan_wrapper.
  It should be downloaded upstream from [GitHub](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Tools).
* The toolchain file (android.toolchain.cmake) is refactored to base on CMake's
  integrated Android support. This new toolchain file will be enabled by default
  for CMake 3.21 and newer. No user side change is expected. But if anything goes
  wrong, please file a bug and set `ANDROID_USE_LEGACY_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=ON` to
  restore the legacy behavior.
    * When using the new behavior (when using CMake 3.21+ and not explicitly
      selecting the legacy toolchain), **default build flags may change**. One
      of the primary goals was to reduce the behavior differences between our
      toolchain and CMake, and CMake's default flags do not always match the
      legacy toolchain file. Most notably, if using `CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release`,
      your optimization type will likely be `-O3` instead of `-O2` or `-Oz`. See
      [Issue 1536] for more information.
* [Issue 929]: `find_library` now prefers shared libraries from the sysroot over
  static libraries.
* [Issue 1390]: ndk-build now warns when building a static executable with the
  wrong API level.
* [Issue 1452]: `NDK_ANALYZE=1` now sets `APP_CLANG_TIDY=true` rather than using
  scan-build. clang-tidy performs all the same checks by default, and scan-build
  was no longer working. See the bug for more details, but no user-side changes
  should be needed.

[Issue 929]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/929
[Issue 1047]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1047
[Issue 1096]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1096
[Issue 1230]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1230
[Issue 1231]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1231
[Issue 1390]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1390
[Issue 1406]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1406
[Issue 1452]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1452
[Issue 1536]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1536
[Polly]: https://polly.llvm.org/

## Known Issues

* This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all outstanding bugs.
* [Issue 360]: `thread_local` variables with non-trivial destructors will cause
  segfaults if the containing library is `dlclose`ed on devices running M or
  newer, or devices before M when using a static STL. The simple workaround is
  to not call `dlclose`.
* [Issue 906]: Clang does not pass `-march=armv7-a` to the assembler when using
  `-fno-integrated-as`. This results in the assembler generating ARMv5
  instructions. Note that by default Clang uses the integrated assembler which
  does not have this problem. To workaround this issue, explicitly use
  `-march=armv7-a` when building for 32-bit ARM with the non-integrated
  assembler, or use the integrated assembler. ndk-build and CMake already
  contain these workarounds.
* [Issue 988]: Exception handling when using ASan via wrap.sh can crash. To
  workaround this issue when using libc++_shared, ensure that your
  application's libc++_shared.so is in `LD_PRELOAD` in your `wrap.sh` as in the
  following example:

  ```bash
  #!/system/bin/sh
  HERE="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")" && pwd)"
  export ASAN_OPTIONS=log_to_syslog=false,allow_user_segv_handler=1
  ASAN_LIB=$(ls $HERE/libclang_rt.asan-*-android.so)
  if [ -f "$HERE/libc++_shared.so" ]; then
      # Workaround for https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/988.
      export LD_PRELOAD="$ASAN_LIB $HERE/libc++_shared.so"
  else
      export LD_PRELOAD="$ASAN_LIB"
  fi
  "$@"
   ```

  There is no known workaround for libc++_static.

  Note that because this is a platform bug rather than an NDK bug this
  workaround will be necessary for this use case to work on all devices until
  at least Android R.

[Issue 360]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/360
[Issue 906]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/906
[Issue 988]: https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/988