Android Debug Bridge (ADB)

Techopedia explains Android Debug Bridge (ADB)

Aside from the Android SDK, which the Android debug bridge is a part of, the basic requirements of an Android development setup is a computer that passes the minimum system requirements for running the Android SDK and, in most cases, an Android device itself. In software development lingo, the computer mentioned is known as the development machine. The client component of the Android Debug Bridge runs in the development machine. It can be invoked from the command prompt (a.k.a. shell) using the adb command. There are also other tools such as the ADT (Android Development Tools) plugin and DDMS (Dalvik Debug Monitor Service) that can create adb clients. The ADB daemon, on the other hand, runs as a background process in either an emulator instance or in the device itself. Finally, the server component of the ADB, which also runs in the development machine but only in the background, takes charge of managing communication between the ADB client and the ADB daemon. When the Android Debug Bridge is active, the user can issue adb commands to interact with one or more emulator instances. The adb can also run multiple instances of the adb client, which can all be used to control all existing emulator instances. The easiest way to use the Android Debug Bridge is by installing ADT plugin into the Eclipse IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This way, the developer wouldn’t have to enter commands through command prompt.