34

The resValue method (or whatever it's called) allows you to set a resource value in buildTypes or productFlavors. Is there a corresponding way to get a resource value that was set by resValue?

It appears that productFlavors is evaluated before buildTypes, so a resValue set in buildTypes takes precedence. I want to append "Debug" to the app name in debug builds, but I need to get the value that was set in the product flavor in order to append to it.

Edit: I tried Marcin Koziński's suggestion to use a variable, but all product flavors are evaluated before any build type. Therefore, this does not work:

android {
    String appName = ""

    productFlavors {
        Foo {
            appName = "Foo"
        }

        Bar {
            appName = "Bar"
        }
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            resValue "string", "app_name", appName 
        }

        debug {
            resValue "string", "app_name", appName + " Debug"
        }
    }
}

In buildTypes, appName always has the value from the last product flavor. So in this example, all builds receive the name "Bar" or "Bar Debug".

Basically, I need a resValueSuffix analogous to applicationIdSuffix. Apparently no such animal exists. Does the com.android.application plugin expose anything that I could use to achieve this?

Kevin Krumwiede
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3 Answers3

44

If you are only trying to set the App Label (or other manifest values) you can solve this with manifest placeholders.

android {

    productFlavors {
        Foo {
             applicationId "com.myexample.foo"
             manifestPlaceholders.appName = "Foo"
        }

        Bar {
             applicationId "com.myexample.bar"
             manifestPlaceholders.appName = "Bar"
        }
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            manifestPlaceholders.appNameSuffix =""
        }

        debug {
            manifestPlaceholders.appNameSuffix =".Debug"
            applicationIdSuffix ".debug"
        }
    }
}

Then in your Android Manifest you simply use both placeholders for your app name (or other values)

 <application
        android:label="${appName}${appNameSuffix}"
        ...
 </application>

This allow you to install all 4 variants side by side on a single device as well as give them different names in the app drawer / launcher.

EDIT 11/22/2019

Updated how placeholders values are set based on feedback from @javaxian

cyroxis
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  • Excellent! Thank you. – Kevin Krumwiede Jun 03 '16 at 18:01
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    I would still be curious how the OPs question can be answered in regards to getting resource value in gradle... – IgorGanapolsky Aug 02 '16 at 21:19
  • I don't know if it is possible, if it is I have never been able to figure it out. – cyroxis Aug 02 '16 at 23:17
  • maybe this link can help you for reading from resource file using gradle: http://veltema.jp/2014/08/27/generating-strings.xml-from-JSON-at-Build-in-Android-Studio/ – Ultimo_m Nov 09 '16 at 10:56
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    I ran into some dire conflicts when using this otherwise great method due to the fact that one of my libs, namely Localytics, also used manifestPlaceholders. All I needed to change is set only the placeholder I wanted, i.e. `manifestPlaceholders.appNameSuffix = ".Debug"` rather than `manifestPlaceholders = [ appNameSuffix:".Debug"]`. – javaxian Jul 12 '17 at 09:22
8

You can check the build variants like this

Define values in gradle

buildTypes {
    debug{
        buildConfigField "String", "Your_string_key", '"yourkeyvalue"'
        buildConfigField "String", "SOCKET_URL", '"some text"'
        buildConfigField "Boolean", "LOG", 'true'
    }
    release {
        buildConfigField "String", "Your_string_key", '"release text"'
        buildConfigField "String", "SOCKET_URL", '"release text"'
        buildConfigField "Boolean", "LOG", 'false'

    }
}

And to access those values using build variants:

 if(!BuildConfig.LOG)
      // do something with the boolean value

Or

view.setText(BuildConfig.yourkeyvalue);
Ivan Milisavljevic
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1

To have an alternative version of a resource in debug builds you can use the debug source set.

strings.xml can be found under following path src/main/res/values, which means it's in the main source set. If you create a new directory src/debug/res/values you can put a new strings.xml file in there with values that should be overridden in debug builds. For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="app_name">My Application Debug</string>
</resources>

This will replace whatever value app_name has in your main file. You don't have to duplicate all the strings in here - ones you don't include here are simply taken from the main file.

Marcin Koziński
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    The resource is not in `strings.xml`. I'm creating it with `resValue` because I anticipate the number of build variants * product flavors to grow, and I'd like to avoid the need to create a `strings.xml` for every combination. – Kevin Krumwiede Jun 01 '16 at 22:11
  • If you're creating the original value using `resValue` then you don't have to read it back from resources. You already have the value in your `build.gradle` script. Just assign it to a local variable and use it to create a resource for each variant. – Marcin Koziński Jun 02 '16 at 07:21
  • I tried putting the variable in the `android` scope. All product flavors run before any build type, so every build type sees the value assigned in the last product flavor. – Kevin Krumwiede Jun 02 '16 at 09:28