Redex, Your Build, And You
summary
Redex is a Dalvik (.dex) optimizer that runs after DX on APKs, works alongside Proguard, and Facebook measures roughly a 25% reduction in cold-start time and APK size. It compacts ARSC resource tables, deduplicates dimensions/colors, and inlines some resource values (an example saving about 100 kilobytes from a repeated 12dp). Class reordering via the interdex pass (using an HPROF-derived classes.ext) collapses a low-end cold start from 22s → 2s. Gradle integration uses Tim Mutton’s plugin and the redex debug/release tasks.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction and speaker background
- 2:04What is Redex and why use it
- 5:13How Redex works with DEX files
- 10:09Whole program optimizations
- 17:11DEX file layout and performance impact
- 25:40Real-world performance gains
- 26:01How to integrate Redex in Gradle
- 30:12Using the interdex pass for ordering
- 31:00Conclusion and Q&A
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