How to get app market version information from goo

Question

How can I get the application version information from google play store for prompting the user for force/recommended an update of the application when play store application is updated i.e. in case of the user is using old version application. I have already gone through andorid-market-api which is not the official way and also requires oauth login authentication from google. I have also gone through android query which provides in-app version check, but it is not working in my case. I found the following two alternatives:

• Use server API which will store version info
• Use google tags and access it in-app, which is not a preferred way to go.

Are there any other ways to do it easily?

Answer 1

You can call the following WebService: http://carreto.pt/tools/android-store-version/?package=[YOUR_APP_PACKAGE_NAME]

Example Using Volley:

String packageName = "com.google.android.apps.plus";
String url = "http://carreto.pt/tools/android-store-version/?package=";
JsonObjectRequest jsObjRequest = new JsonObjectRequest
    (Request.Method.GET, url+packageName, null, new Response.Listener<JSONObject>() {
                    @Override
                    public void onResponse(JSONObject response) {
                        /*
                                here you have access to:

                                package_name, - the app package name
                                status - success (true) of the request or not (false)
                                author - the app author
                                app_name - the app name on the store
                                locale - the locale defined by default for the app
                                publish_date - the date when the update was published
                                version - the version on the store
                                last_version_description - the update text description
                             */
                        try{
                            if(response != null && response.has("status") && response.getBoolean("status") && response.has("version")){
                                Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), response.getString("version").toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                            }
                            else{
                                //TODO handling error
                            }
                        }
                        catch (Exception e){
                            //TODO handling error
                        }

                    }
                }, new Response.ErrorListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onErrorResponse(VolleyError error) {
                        //TODO handling error
                    }
        });

Answer 2

I will recommend to use ex. push notification to notify your app that there is a new update, OR use your own server to enable your app read version from there.

Yes its additional work each time you update your app, but in this case your are not depended on some "unofficial" or third party things that may run out of service.

Just in case you missed something - previous discussion of your topic query the google play store for the version of an app?

Answer 3

I recomned dont use a library just create a new class

1.

public class VersionChecker extends AsyncTask<String, String, String>{

String newVersion;

@Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {

    try {
        newVersion = Jsoup.connect("https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=" + "package name" + "&hl=en")
                .timeout(30000)
                .userAgent("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WindowsNT 5.1; en-US; rv1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6")
                .referrer("http://www.google.com")
                .get()
                .select("div.hAyfc:nth-child(4) > span:nth-child(2) > div:nth-child(1) > span:nth-child(1)")
                .first()
                .ownText();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return newVersion;
}

2. In your activity:

       VersionChecker versionChecker = new VersionChecker();
       String latestVersion = versionChecker.execute().get();
   

THAT IS ALL

Answer 4

Apart from using JSoup, we can alternatively do pattern matching for getting the app version from playStore.

To match the latest pattern from google playstore ie <div class="BgcNfc">Current Version</div><span class="htlgb"><div><span class="htlgb">X.X.X</span></div> we first have to match the above node sequence and then from above sequence get the version value. Below is the code snippet for same:

    private String getAppVersion(String patternString, String inputString) {
        try{
            //Create a pattern
            Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(patternString);
            if (null == pattern) {
                return null;
            }

            //Match the pattern string in provided string
            Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inputString);
            if (null != matcher && matcher.find()) {
                return matcher.group(1);
            }

        }catch (PatternSyntaxException ex) {

            ex.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }


    private String getPlayStoreAppVersion(String appUrlString) {
        final String currentVersion_PatternSeq = "<div[^>]*?>Current\\sVersion</div><span[^>]*?>(.*?)><div[^>]*?>(.*?)><span[^>]*?>(.*?)</span>";
        final String appVersion_PatternSeq = "htlgb\">([^<]*)</s";
        String playStoreAppVersion = null;

        BufferedReader inReader = null;
        URLConnection uc = null;
        StringBuilder urlData = new StringBuilder();

        final URL url = new URL(appUrlString);
        uc = url.openConnection();
        if(uc == null) {
           return null;
        }
        uc.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WindowsNT 5.1; en-US; rv1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6");
        inReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(uc.getInputStream()));
        if (null != inReader) {
            String str = "";
            while ((str = inReader.readLine()) != null) {
                           urlData.append(str);
            }
        }

        // Get the current version pattern sequence 
        String versionString = getAppVersion (currentVersion_PatternSeq, urlData.toString());
        if(null == versionString){ 
            return null;
        }else{
            // get version from "htlgb">X.X.X</span>
            playStoreAppVersion = getAppVersion (appVersion_PatternSeq, versionString);
        }

        return playStoreAppVersion;
    }

I got this solved through this. This also solves the latest changes done by Google in PlayStore. Hope that helps.

Answer 5

Use server API which will store version info

Like you said.This is an easy way to detect an update. Pass your version info with every API calls. When playstore is updated change the version in server. Once the server version is higher than installed app version, you can return a status code/message in API response which can be handled and update message can be showed. You can also block users from using very old app like WhatsApp do if u use this method.

Or you can use push notification, which is easy to do...Also

Answer 6

Use this code its perfectly working fine.

public void forceUpdate(){
    PackageManager packageManager = this.getPackageManager();
    PackageInfo packageInfo = null;
    try {
        packageInfo =packageManager.getPackageInfo(getPackageName(),0);
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    String currentVersion = packageInfo.versionName;
    new ForceUpdateAsync(currentVersion,TodayWork.this).execute();
}

public class ForceUpdateAsync extends AsyncTask<String, String, JSONObject> {

    private String latestVersion;
    private String currentVersion;
    private Context context;
    public ForceUpdateAsync(String currentVersion, Context context){
        this.currentVersion = currentVersion;
        this.context = context;
    }

    @Override
    protected JSONObject doInBackground(String... params) {

        try {
            latestVersion = Jsoup.connect("https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=" + context.getPackageName()+ "&hl=en")
                    .timeout(30000)
                    .userAgent("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WindowsNT 5.1; en-US; rv1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6")
                    .referrer("http://www.google.com")
                    .get()
                    .select("div.hAyfc:nth-child(3) > span:nth-child(2) > div:nth-child(1) > span:nth-child(1)")
                    .first()
                    .ownText();
            Log.e("latestversion","---"+latestVersion);

        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return new JSONObject();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(JSONObject jsonObject) {
        if(latestVersion!=null){
            if(!currentVersion.equalsIgnoreCase(latestVersion)){
                // Toast.makeText(context,"update is available.",Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                if(!(context instanceof SplashActivity)) {
                    if(!((Activity)context).isFinishing()){
                        showForceUpdateDialog();
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        super.onPostExecute(jsonObject);
    }

    public void showForceUpdateDialog(){

        context.startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("market://details?id=" + context.getPackageName())));
    }

}