gradle-apklib-plugin

An Android-Gradle plugin for generate DEX classes and a APK from a Library module.

Why?

Well, if you reach this page, you are very likely looking for this. In my case, I was on the need to perform hot-code Android updates pushed from my server without forcing the users to update the app from the PlayStore.

How it works

This library relies on the Android's build stack, and given a Library module:

• Forces the assemble of the AAR package
• Extracts the classes.jar and perform dexing on it using the dx tool.
• Repackages the generated classes.dex along with all original Java resources from classes.jar into an mymodule.lib.apk file

Note: This tool will allow you to push updates of Java (Android) code and Java resources. Android's resources (strings, drawables, etc) or any other Android specific component are not supported.

Usage

On your build.gradle add:

plugins {
    id 'com.github.gmazzo.apklib' version '0.3'
}

apply plugin: 'com.android.library'

After applying the plugin, a task bundleLibApk per variant will be added to your build. On a default configuration will be bundleLibApkDebug and bundleLibApkRelease.

What's next?

Check the provided example-app and example-lib for a full working example of this library with hot-code loading. You may easily replace the content from the asset with the response from a web endpoint.

This repository also serves as an example of:

• Building and publishing a Gradle's plugin (also linked to another plugin like Android's one in this case)
• Full Kotlin + Dagger 2 working code
• Kotlin Android Layout Extensions working code (to avoid findViewById())
• Dagger's Android module working code
• Android's buildConfigField usage
• Gradle and Android sourceSet specific dependencies working code
• Gradle's tasks input and output definition for proper UP-TO-DATE support on custom tasks
• Gradle's tasks dependency (including cross-project linking) with dependsOn and evaluationDependsOn
• Android's assets generation with Gradle's tasks
• Gradle's includeBuild and dependencySubstitution working code, for in-build live plugin build and testing
• Advanced ProGuard obfuscation like -keep,allowobfuscation, -flattenpackagehierarchy and -adaptresourcefilecontents
• Exploration of Java backend concepts of ClassLoader and ServiceLoader