Additional Resources

The following resources provide details on code locations, tools, testing, and licensing.

Queryable code location

The code for the queryable vendor interface object goes to system/libvintf (see the queryable API).

Handwriting manifest files and compatibility matrices can be tough. Use the following tools to generate a boilerplate manifest/compatibility matrix to start from.

LSHAL

LSHAL is a device-side tool that lists all registered HALs to hwservicemanager and all available passthrough implementations (e.g. android.hardware.foo@1.0-impl.so) on the device. It can also generate a device manifest file based on the list:

adb shell su 0 /system/bin/lshal --init-vintf

Note the following:

If a package is both registered to hwservicemanager and found as a passthrough HAL, <transport> is set to hwbinder.
No SELinux version is written into the manifest. It is suggested that the element is injected via assemble_vintf as explained below.
The generated HAL manifest file may be inaccurate. Human attention is required to fix inconsistencies between the device manifest and what vendor.img actually provides.

ASSEMBLE_VINTF

assemble_vintf is a host-side tool that:

Verifies a compatibility matrix or manifest file is valid.
Injects variables to manifests/compatibility matrices available at build time and generates a new file that should be installed to the device.
Checks compatibility between the generated file and its dual.
If a manifest file is given, optionally generates a boilerplate compatibility matrix that is compatible with the manifest file.

Example: Generate device compatibility matrix from a framework manifest file

assemble_vintf -m --hals-only \
    -i system/libhidl/manifest.xml \
    -o device/manufacturer/device_name/compatibility_matrix.xml

Note that all HALs are set to optional="true".

Example: Generate a skeleton framework compatibility matrix from a device manifest file

assemble_vintf -m --hals-only \
    -i device/foo/bar/manifest.xml \
    -o path/to/place/output/compatibility_matrix.xml

Note that all HALs are set to optional="true".

Example: Generate XML files from variables

At build time, if the following variables are defined in device/manufacturer/device_name/BoardConfig.mk:

DEVICE_MANIFEST_FILE := \
    device/manufacturer/device_name/manifest.xml
DEVICE_MATRIX_FILE := \
    device/manufacturer/device_name/compatibility_matrix.xml

Then the following commands are executed (in the build system, modified to omit implementation details) to generate all XML files:

# device manifest; only when DEVICE_MANIFEST_FILE is set
BOARD_SEPOLICY_VERS=10000.0 assemble_vintf \
    $(addprefix,-i ,$(DEVICE_MANIFEST_FILE)) \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/etc/vintf/manifest.xml

# device compatibility matrix; only when DEVICE_MATRIX_FILE is set
assemble_vintf \
    -i $(DEVICE_MATRIX_FILE) \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/etc/vintf/compatibility_matrix.xml

# framework manifest
assemble_vintf
    $(addprefix,-i ,system/libhidl/manifest.xml $(DEVICE_FRAMEWORK_MANIFEST_FILE)) \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT)/manifest.xml \
    -c $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/etc/vintf/compatibility_matrix.xml

# common framework compatibility matrix for each FCM version
BOARD_SEPOLICY_VERS=$(BOARD_SEPOLICY_VERS) \
POLICYVERS=$(POLICYVERS) \
BOARD_AVB_VBMETA_VERSION=$(BOARD_AVB_VBMETA_VERSION)
assemble_vintf \
    $(addprefix,-i ,\
        hardware/interfaces/compatibility_matrices/compatibility_matrix.empty.xml \
        $(DEVICE_FRAMEWORK_COMPATIBILITY_MATRIX_FILE)) \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT)/etc/vintf/compatibility_matrix.empty.xml

# framework compatibility matrices at each FCM version
assemble_vintf
    -i hardware/interfaces/compatibility_matrices/compatibility_matrix.{level}.xml \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT)/etc/vintf/compatibility_matrix.{level}.xml \
    --kernel=...

# Final framework compatibility matrix to check with device manifest.
# Each input matrix should have a unique "level" attribute.
PRODUCT_ENFORCE_VINTF_MANIFEST=$(PRODUCT_ENFORCE_VINTF_MANIFEST) \
assemble_vintf
    -i $(TARGET_OUT)/etc/vintf/compatibility_matrix.*.xml
    -o /tmp/compatibility_matrix.xml
    -c $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/manifest.xml

Example: Generate device manifest from fragments

Multiple device manifest fragments can be bundled at build time. For example:

<!-- device/manufacturer/device_name/manifest_common.xml -->
<manifest version="1.0" type="device">
    <!-- common HALs here -->
</manifest>

<!-- device/manufacturer/device_name/ir.xml -->
<manifest version="1.0" type="device">
    <hal>
        <name>android.hardware.ir</name>
        <version>1.0</version>
        <!-- other fields -->
    </hal>
</manifest>

# device/manufacturer/device_name/BoardConfig.mk
DEVICE_MANIFEST_FILE := device/manufacturer/device_name/manifest_common.xml
ifdef BOARD_ENABLE_IR
    DEVICE_MANIFEST_FILE += device/manufacturer/device_name/ir.xml
endif

Then, assemble_vintf adds Ir HAL to device manifest if BOARD_ENABLE_IR is defined, and omits it if BOARD_ENABLE_IR is not defined. The following commands (modified to omit implementation details) are executed to generate the device manifest:

# if BOARD_ENABLE_IR is defined
BOARD_SEPOLICY_VERS=10000.0 assemble_vintf \
    -i device/manufacturer/device_name/manifest_common.xml:device/manufacturer/device_name/ir.xml \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/manifest.xml

# if BOARD_ENABLE_IR is not defined
BOARD_SEPOLICY_VERS=10000.0 assemble_vintf \
    -i device/manufacturer/device_name/manifest_common.xml \
    -o $(TARGET_OUT_VENDOR)/manifest.xml

For details, see:

assemble_vintf --help

Testing

The platform/system/libvintf project uses GTest for the serialization, deserialization, and compatibility checking.

Licensing

tinyxml2 (external/tinyxml2) for serializing/deserializing the object to/from XML. BSD-like license.
libselinux (external/selinux/libselinux) for getting policydb version. Public domain license.
libz (external/zlib) for decompressing /proc/config.gz. BSD-like license.
libvintf project uses Apache 2.0 license (with appropriate MODULE_LICENSE_APACHE2 and NOTICE files).