如何使用AndroidStudio在Android中创建独立库？

Question

I am very new to JAVA/ Android world. I come from C background. The AndroidStudio / Gradle stuff is a bit overwhelming for me.

I am looking to create a library using AndroidStudio. But when I click on "Start a new Android Studio Project" it asks me for Application name and then for activity et al. This is where it gets confusing for me. Why would these details be required to create a library module? Am I missing something here?

I know that there is a File - > New Module Menu and all that stuff, but that comes later once I have set the applicaton details. But here, I dont want to create any application, just the lib (similar to a shared library I would create in C using Makefiles/autotools).

Also, A library in Android world is basically a jar file (like we have *.so in C), right?

Answer 1

1) While Android tools does accept/use Java JAR files, JARs don't contain Android specific stuff like resources (bitmaps,xml) as well as the necessary meta-data to properly merge all of that into a client project. So with the 'new' Gradle based tools we now have AAR format http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/aar-format and the toolchain knows how to handle them.

2) Which brings you to Create aar file in Android Studio