Is it possible to compile Android library for ARMV6 and optionally with VFP?

Question

I currently use -mfloat-abi=softfp -mfpu=vfp

I think the above line requires ARMV6 device with real VFP support.

What if I use -mfloat-abi=soft ? Would that work on ARMV6 devices without a real VFP support but be faster than not even specifying mfloat-abi?

(I don't want to create a fat binary with 2 .so files)

Answer 1

The gcc info page says:

Specifying soft causes GCC to generate output containing library calls for floating-point operations. softfp allows the generation of code using hardware floating-point instructions, but still uses the soft-float calling conventions. hard allows generation of floating-point instructions and uses FPU-specific calling conventions.

So using soft isn't what you want for targets with an FPU.

Most currently-shipping devices have an ARMv7-A or better CPU, so unless you are targeting a specific device I'm not sure how much value there is in building two shared libs.

Update: There's actually a lot of devices shipping with older CPUs. All the high-end stuff is ARMv7-A, but there's a lot of volume in low-end devices.

ARMv6 + VFP is not a configuration supported by the Play Store -- the goal was to keep the set of configurations as small as possible. You'll need to use a fat binary, or (as it sounds like you're doing) configure your build carefully and list specific devices in Play Store.