android-xml-converter

December 6, 2025 · View on GitHub

This is just an experimental code to convert between android xml formats (abx and xml). functionality is not guaranteed.

android's default abx2xml and xml2abx

  • abx2xml and xml2abx binaries found generally in /system/bin/ of android devices is just a shell script that acts as a wrapper for executing abx.jar. It depends on Java and app_process, making it reliant on Android's runtime environment. Since it invokes Java code, it cannot run independently in environments where Java isn't available and also the overhead of launching a Java process adds extra execution time.

Standalone abx2xml and xml2abx

  • This abx2xml and xml2abx binary performs the same function—converting between ABX and XML but in a fully standalone manner. Unlike default android binaries, this binary does not require Java, or abx.jar to function.

Note: This may not be a perfect alternative implementation of Android's xml2abx and abx2xml, as Android manages many things internally that may not be possible to replicate in a standalone version.

Command line usage

  • Similar to default abx2xml and xml2abx

  • abx2xml [-i] input [output]

  • xml2abx [-i] [--collapse-whitespace] input [output]

Note: abx2xml may output unformatted XML (with broken indentation) depending on how the original ABX format was structured. You can use xmllint or any other XML formatter to pretty-print the output if needed. While we could have added a built-in pretty printer to abx2xml, it would significantly affect performance.

Implementation

This project was initially started in C++, but has since been migrated to Rust for improved memory safety and performance. The C++ implementation still exists in the repository for reference purposes and ease of comparison.

Installation

  • Can be installed directly by running
cargo install android-xml-converter
# Needs Cargo

Building Manually

  • Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rhythmcache/android-xml-converter.git
cd android-xml-converter
  • Build Rust Version (Recommended)
cargo build --release
  • Build C++ version (via Meson)
meson setup builddir
meson compile -C builddir

Performance Benchmarks

Performance comparison across different platforms:

Android

Android Benchmark

Linux

Linux Benchmark

Windows

Windows Benchmark

macOS

macOS Benchmark

Note: The Android benchmark includes Android's official abx2xml and xml2abx binaries for comparison, demonstrating the performance advantages of standalone native implementations over Java-based solutions. The Linux, Windows, and macOS benchmarks (run in GitHub Actions) compare the C++ and Rust implementations.

References

License