italankin / adbc

Device selection facade for ADB

adbc

adbc is an ADB facade which shows a device selection dialog, if multiple Android devices are connected.

To find a path to adb executable adbc uses ANDROID_HOME or ANDROID_SDK_ROOT environment variables. If none of the above is defined, adbc will assume adb is available via PATH.

Usage

Running a command

$ adbc <adb command>

For example:

$ adbc shell dumpsys activity | grep mResumed

If there are multiple connected Android devices, the select dialog will be shown:

select a device:
  1: emulator-5554      device
  2: emulator-5556      device
  ... other devices ...
  q: quit

Running with no arguments

With no arguments adbc will print selected device id. It can be used by scripts to prompt user to select a device, and then execute commands on the selected device.

For example, if we need to execute multiple commands on one device:

$ SELECTED_DEVICE=`adbc`
$ adb -s $SELECTED_DEVICE shell input text login
$ adb -s $SELECTED_DEVICE shell input keyevent TAB
$ adb -s $SELECTED_DEVICE shell input text password
$ adb -s $SELECTED_DEVICE shell input keyevent ENTER

You can also use ANDROID_SERIAL variable:

$ export ANDROID_SERIAL=`adbc`
$ adb shell  # will be executed on the selected device

Print version

Run adbc with --adbc-version option:

$ adbc --adbc-version
adbc version: 1.0.1
Using adb path: /home/user/android-sdk/platform-tools/adb
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version 29.0.5-5949299
Installed as /home/user/android-sdk/platform-tools/adb

Downloads

MacOS (unsigned) and Linux binaries are available. See releases.

Building

Requirements

• gcc
• ncurses

Building executable

An executable can be built with this command:

$ make adbc

The executable will be created at ./build/adbc.

adbc's Issues

Invalid escaping of spaces

Arguments with escaped spaces are treated incorrectly:

$ adbc install app\ \(1\).apk
Performing Streamed Install
adb: failed to stat (1).apk: No such file or directory

-H support

Add support for -H flag

Pass-through for commands which do not require serial_number

Certain commands, such as start-server, kill-server and others do not require serial_number.
Do not show device selection dialog for them.

ADB commands not escaped

Command

$ adbc shell echo \\\)

fails with error:

/system/bin/sh: syntax error: unexpected ')'

Should successfully print )