How to compile C into an executable binary file and run it in Android from Android Shell?

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First, let me say that my answer is dependent on your using NDK r7b (it’ll work for r7c as well) on Linux (change paths appropriately for other systems).

Edit: Last tested with NDK r8e on Linux and Nexus 4 with adb from SDK Platform-Tools Rev 18 on Windows 7 (latest as of 2013-07-25) without root access.

Yet Another Edit: Please read this question for altering my instruction for native binaries that need to run on Android 5.0(Lollypop) and later.

  1. Go to $NDK_ROOT (The topmost folder of NDK zip when unzipped).
  2. Copy $NDK_ROOT/samples/hello-jni directory as $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-world.
  3. Go to $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-world.
  4. Edit AndroidManifest.xml to give the application an appropriate name (This is optional).
  5. Go to $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-world/jni. This is where the source code is.
  6. Edit hello-jni.c, remove all the code, and put in your hello world code. Mine is: 
    #include 
int main( int argc, char* argv[])
{
    printf("Hello, World!");
    return 0;
}
  7. Edit Android.mk and change the line include $(BUILD_SHARED_LIBRARY) to include $(BUILD_EXECUTABLE). You can also change the LOCAL_MODULE line to the name you want for your executable(default is hello-jni)
  8. Go back to $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-world
  9. Run ../../ndk-build to create the executable.
  10. Copy it from $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-jni/libs/armeabi/hello-jni to /data/local/tmp on the Android device and change it’s permissions to 755 (rwxr-xr-x). If you changed the LOCAL_MODULE line in $NDK_ROOT/sources/hello-world/jni/Android.mk, the executable name will be the new value of LOCAL_MODULE instead of hello-jni. (All this is done via adb from the Android SDK.)
  11. Execute the binary with full path as /data/local/tmp/hello-jni, or whatever you named it to.

And you’re done( and free to start on the documentation in $NDK_ROOT/docs to get a better idea of what to do).

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