Multiple Android Application Package .apk files fr

Question

I would like an Android build system procedure, command line or Eclipse, to generate several .apk files from a single source codebase. Some common reasons for this - having specific versions for markets with different requirements or a free and paid version.

This question IS NOT ABOUT:

• Packaging shared code into Android libraries or into external Java jars

• Producing a debug vs. signed release .apk

Google says "you probably need to create separate Android projects for each APK you intend to publish so that you can appropriately develop them separately. You can do this by simply duplicating your existing project and give it a new name." Then they kindly suggest using libraries, which I understand. Then, they mention in passing exactly what I do want: "a build system that can output different resources based on the build configuration"

• I know that to accomplish conditional compilation in JAVA one can key off a 'public static final' variable. There is an example of tweaking such a value in build.xml. Any more complete example of an Android Ant build configuration for this or a link to an OSS project doing that now, please? BTW, build.xml is auto-generated, but I have seen people hacking it, so how does that work?

• With the package name declared in Manifest.xml as package="com.example.appname", if one needs to emit multiple .apks that vary that name, is one stuck with a separate project for each?

Answer 1

My team build 2 different build using single code base + additional code. As android build is based on ant script, I use ant script to do this work.

I used xmltask to manipulate manifest xml file and many ant task ( regexp , copy..) to edit source code.

I prepared template project template ( including build.xml , default.properties, local.properties) and copied new source code into those project templates. when copy completed, run build.xml parallel to shorten build time. when build finished, I get multiple apk files.

Answer 2

I'm generating 2 different APK's (demo and production) from one single source tree with 3 small modifications:

1) I have public static final DEMO=true; //false; in my Application class and depending on that value I used to switch code between demo/production features

2) There are 2 main activities, like:

package mypackage;
public class MyProduction extends Activity 
{
    //blah-blah
}

package mypackage.demo;
public class MyDemoActivity extends mypackage.MyProductionActivity
{
    //blah-blah
}

3) And in the end 2 separate AndroidManifest.xml files which points to different launcher activities depending on demo/production switch

I'm switching between 2 APK's manually, but see nothing difficult in writing small ANT task to switch between them automatically

Answer 3

This article has a good walk-through with examples of how to amend config files at build time; see in particular the Customizing the build and Using a Java configuration file sections. Note that some of the information about build.xml and ant is a little bit out-of-date now.

Answer 4

Despite your insistence that this is not about packaging shared code into Android libraries, it sort of is. You've stated that markets may have different requirements or having a free and a paid version. In each of these examples, your two final output APKs have different behavior and/or resources. You can put the vast majority of your code in a shared Android library, and then maintain the differences in your actual projects.

For example, I've worked on apps where they need to be released both to the Android Market and the Amazon AppStore. The Amazon AppStore requires that if you link to a market page for the app, it must be Amazon's (as opposed to the Android Market page). You can store a URL in a resource in the library and use that in your code, but then override that resource in the Amazon project to point to the appropriate Amazon URL.

If you structure it right, you can do similar things in code because your starting point is your Application object which you can subclass and do different things with.

That said, if you want to add an Ant step that changes the package name in the manifest, it is just XML. It shouldn't be hard to modify as a precompilation step.

Answer 5

I had the same problem but packing all in one project with flags is no solution for me. I wrote an example how to do that with Maven:

How to create multiple Android apk files from one codebase organized by a Maven multi module project.

Answer 6

One way to do it would be to maintain two separate AndroidManifest.xml, one for each configuration. You can switch back and forth between the two either manually (copying) or automatically (build script).

[edit] This person here has a system to do this kind of thing: http://blog.elsdoerfer.name/2010/04/29/android-build-multiple-versions-of-a-project/