How to include a file that I can use in ndk

[Rudolf Arseni Braun]

I have come across this
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13317387/how-to-get-file-in-assets-from-android-ndk,
which I will come back to in a second, but my first question is have things
improved at all? As in maybe there now is an easier to way to access asset
files in C++?

If not: I do not want to have the unpack the files everytime the app starts
as that would be very costly, is there some way to make it so when the app
is installed the files will be unpacked? Ideally I'd then also like the
assets to be removed as I wouldn't need them anymore (after I have the
version on disk I can actually use) and they would take up a good deal of
space.