Auto increment version code in Android app

Question

is there a way to auto-increment the version code each time you build an Android application in Eclipse?

According to http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/versioning.html, you have to manually increment your version code in AndroidManifest.xml.

I understand, you have to run a script before each build which would, e.g. parse AndroidManifest.xml file, find the version number, increment it and save the file before the build itself starts. However, i couldn't find out how and if Eclipse supports runnings scripts before/after builds.

I have found this article about configuring ant builder, but this is not exactly about Android and I fear this will mess up too much the predefined building steps for Android?

Should be a common problem, how did you solve it?

Well, one can do this manually, but as soon as you forget to do this chore, you get different versions with the same number and the whole versioning makes little sense.

Answer 1

This shell script, suitable for *nix systems, sets the versionCode and the last component of versionName to the current subversion revision. I'm using Netbeans with NBAndroid and I call this script from the target -pre-compile in custom_rules.xml.

Save this script in a file called incVersion in the same directory as AndroidManifest.xml, make it executable: chmod +x incVersion

manf=AndroidManifest.xml
newverfull=`svnversion`
newvers=`echo $newverfull | sed 's/[^0-9].*$//'`
vers=`sed -n '/versionCode=/s/.*"\([0-9][0-9]*\)".*/\1/p' $manf`
vername=`sed -n '/versionName=/s/.*"\([^"]*\)".*/\1/p' $manf`
verbase=`echo $vername | sed 's/\(.*\.\)\([0-9][0-9]*\).*$/\1/'`
newvername=$verbase$newverfull
sed /versionCode=/s/'"'$vers'"'/'"'$newvers'"'/ $manf | sed /versionName=/s/'"'$vername'"'/'"'$newvername'"'/  >new$manf && cp new$manf $manf && rm -f new$manf
echo versionCode=$newvers versionName=$newvername

Create or edit custom_rules.xml and add this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="custom_rules">
    <xmlproperty file="AndroidManifest.xml" prefix="mymanifest" collapseAttributes="true"/>
    <target name="-pre-compile">
        <exec executable="./incVersion" failonerror="true"/>
    </target>
</project>

So if my current svn revision is 82, I end up with this in AndroidManifest.xml:

android:versionCode="82"
android:versionName="2.1.82">

When I want to release a new version I'll typically update the first parts of versionName, but even if I forget, the last part of versionName (which is exposed in my About activity) will always tell me what svn revision it was built from. Also, if I have not checked in changes, the revision number will be 82M and versionName will be something like 2.1.82M.

The advantage over simply incrementing the version number each time a build is done is that the number stays under control, and can be directly related to a specific svn revision. Very helpful when investigating bugs in other than the latest release.

Answer 2

If you want to update the AndroidManifest.xml to use a specific version number, perhaps from a build system, then you can use the project I just pushed to GitHub: https://github.com/bluebirdtech/AndroidManifestVersioner

It's a basic .NET command line app, usage:

AndroidManifestVersioner <path> <versionCode> <versionName>.

Thanks to other posters for their code.

Answer 3

I was able to work out my own solution from the information given. In case it is useful for someone here is my bash script for updating the versionCode and versionName attributes when using the GIT VCS on Linux.

My script to edit the AndroidManifest.xml file looks like this:

#/bin/bash

CODE=`git tag | grep -c ^v`
NAME=`git describe --dirty`
COMMITS=`echo ${NAME} | sed -e 's/v[0-9\.]*//'`

if [ "x${COMMITS}x" = "xx" ] ; then
    VERSION="${NAME}"
else
    BRANCH=" (`git branch | grep "^\*" | sed -e 's/^..//'`)"
    VERSION="${NAME}${BRANCH}"
fi

cat AndroidManifest.template.xml \\
    | sed -e "s/__CODE__/${CODE}/" \\
          -e   "s/__VERSION__/${VERSION}/" > AndroidManifest.xml

exit 0

It parses the template file (AndroidManifest.template.xml) and replaces the strings "__VERSION__" and "__CODE__" with more appropriate values:

• "__CODE__" is replaced with a count of the number of tags in the Git repo which starts with a single lowercase V and is followed by a sequence of digits and dots. This looks like most version string like: "v0.5", "v1.1.4" and so on.
• "__VERSION__" is replaced with a combination of the output from the "git describe" command and, if not a "clean" build, the branch on which it was built.

By a "clean" build I mean one where all the components are under version control and their is latest commit is tagged. "git describe --dirty" will report a version number based upon the last reachable annotated tag in your latest commit on the current branch. If there are commits since that tag a count of those commits is reported as is the abbreviated object name of your last commit. The "--dirty" option will append "-dirty" to the above information if any files are modified that are under version control have been modified.

So AndroidManifest.xml should not be under version control any more, and you should only edit the AndroidManifest.template.xml file. The start of your AndroidManifest.template.xml file looks something like this:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.packagename"
    android:versionCode="__CODE__"
    android:versionName="__VERSION__" >

Hope this is useful to someone

Answer 4

I accomplished this. And here's how I did it for the next guy (using Eclipse):

1) Create an external console executable that is going to write a new version code to the AndroidManifest.xml: (mine is in C#)

using System.IO;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace AndroidAutoIncrementVersionCode
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                string FILE = @"AndroidManifest.xml";
                string text = File.ReadAllText(FILE);
                Regex regex = new Regex(@"(?<A>android:versionCode="")(?<VER>\d+)(?<B>"")", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
                Match match = regex.Match(text);
                int verCode = int.Parse(match.Groups["VER"].Value) + 1;
                string newText = regex.Replace(text, "${A}" + verCode + "${B}", 1);

                File.WriteAllText(FILE, newText);
            }
            catch { }
        }
    }
}

aside: any c-sharp compiler can build this app, you don't need Visual Studio or even Windows

1. if you don't have it already, install .NET runtime (Mono will work, link) (link to MS's .NET framework 2.0, 2.0 is the smallest download, any version >= 2.0 is fine)
2. copy this code to a *.cs file (i named mine: AndroidAutoIncrementVersionCode.cs)
3. open a command prompt and navigate over to where you made your *.cs file
4. build the file using this command (on Windows, similar for Mono but change path to compiler): c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc AndroidAutoIncrementVersionCode.cs (see: .NET or Mono for more info)

5. congrats, you just built a C# app without any tools, it should have generated AndroidAutoIncrementVersionCode.exe in the same directory automatically

   **mileage may vary, paths might be different, no purchase required, void where prohibited, i added this because C# is awesome, and people mistakenly think it has MS lock-in, you could just as easily translate this to another language (but i'm not going to do that for you ;). incidentally any version of any .NET compiler will work, i adapted the code for the least common denominator...*

end aside

2) Run the executable during the build process: a) Go to the project properties

b) In the properties, Go to "Builders" -> "New..."

c) Choose "Program"

d) In the "Main" tab select the program location (I also set the working directory to be safe) and give it a name if you wish.

e) In the "Refresh" tab select the "Refresh resources upon completion" and "The selected resource" option - this will refresh the manifest after we write it.

f) In the "Build Options" tab you can turn off "Allocate Console" as you have no input and output and then select only "During manual builds" and "During auto builds" deselect "After a Clean" if it is checked. Then select "Specify a working set of relevant resources" and click the "Specify Resources..." button. In the "Edit Working Set" dialog, locate your "AndroidManifest.xml" file in the dialog and check it, then hit "Finish"

f) Now hit "OK" inside the "Edit Configuration Dialog" and in the properties for your App, select the newly created builder, and keep clicking "Up" until it is at the top of the list, this way the auto increment runs first, and doesn't trigger accidental out-of-sync states or rebuilds. Once the new builder you made is at the top of the list, click "OK" and you're finished.

Answer 5

Receipe:

To automatically have the android:versionCode attribute of manifest element in AndroidManifest.xml set to the current time (from epoch in seconds, obtained from unix shell) everytime you run a build, add this to your -pre-build target in custom_rules.xml Android file.

<target name="-pre-build">
  <exec executable="date" outputproperty="CURRENT_TIMESTAMP">
    <arg value="+%s"/>
  </exec>
  <replaceregex file="AndroidMainfest.xml" match="android:versionCode=.*"
    replace='android:versionCode="${CURRENT_TIMESTAMP}"' />
</target>

Confirmation Test:

Obtain the versionCode attribute of the generated apk file, using the following shell command from your Android project directory :

$ANDROID_SDK/build-tools/20.0.0/aapt dump badging bin/<YourProjectName>.apk | grep versionCode

and compare it to the current date returned from the shell command: date +%s The difference should equal the period of time in seconds between the two confirmation steps above.

Advantages of this approach:

1. Regardless of whether the build is started from command line or Eclipse, it will update the versionCode.
2. The versionCode is guaranteed to be unique and increasing for each build
3. The versionCode can be reverse-engineered into an approximate build time if you need it
4. The above script replaces any present value of versionCode, even 0 and doesn't require a macro place holder (such as -build_id-).
5. Because the value is updated in the AndroidManifest.xml file, you can check it in to version control and it will retain the actual value, not some macro (such as -build_id-).

Answer 6

So, I see it like this:

Depending on article that you present, use ant for this tasks (targets?).

1. parse Manifest (parse XML)
2. get old version form manifest and increase it/get version from repo
3. store new version in manifest
4. build android app.

But im my case I usually fill this field by value based on Tag's revision when I deploy or distribute application.