When thinking about automating the building/testing of an Android project I ran across the necessity to do so from the command line and not using Eclipse. After some searching I found that its quite easy to get this done with the tools that Android has already available which can generate a simple build.xml file to be use for building/installing/packaging an Android project.
To build your Ant build file you can use simply the following from the root of your project:
android update project -p .
Now if you need to link additional Android projects to this one you can do so with the following command:
android update project -p . -l path/to/other/android/project
To see the available targets just issue the ususal: ant -p and you’ll get all of the available targets:
Main targets:
clean Removes output files created by other targets.
compile Compiles project's .java files into .class files
debug Builds the application and signs it with a debug key.
install Installs/reinstalls the debug package onto a running emulator or
device. If the application was previously installed, the signatures
must match.
release Builds the application. The generated apk file must be signed before it is published.
uninstall Uninstalls the application from a running emulator or device.
Default target: help