Develop Reference

Getting Latest Library Dependency - Android

I'm new to Gradle and I need to make sure that my Android project has the latest dependencies with regards to RxAndroid and RxJava. Forgive me for my ignorance but could someone explain how I go about to make sure that the libraries I include in my project are the latest ones? Where does Gradle downloads these libraries from? Is there a central repository? Is GitHub the source? It's not clear from the code shown below:
build.gradle
dependencies {
compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.3.0'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxandroid:1.0.1'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxjava:1.0.14'
}
I would really appreciate if someone could shed some light with regards to this topic.

Gradle downloads them from Maven or other repos. I don't believe GitHub hosts the libraries themselves, but the link to download the libraries could be found on GitHub.
To ensure they are the latest version, you will have to go the library's web page(Git hub page usually) and check if a latest version has been released.
If I am not wrong, you could add a + sign at the end and when you sync Gradle with work in offline mode turned off, it should fetch the latest version of the library.
Eg:
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.3.0+'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxandroid:1.0.1+'
The above line will ensure that 1.0.1 is the min version that you will download and if there are any higher version, it will download that instead.
WARNING : this is not a safe thing to do, because the latest version of library will be automatically downloaded and the changes in the newer version of the library might have breaking changes, and break your app. For instance the methods you use from a library might be removed in the new library or even worse things could happen and it has to me. I suggest you set some time apart once every few weeks and see if there are new updates and consider if it is safe to update.
Deciding to add a library to your project must be carefully thought through, as you are making the project dependent on it and if that library dies out or is buggy, your project too will be screwed. Incase you didn't, I suggest you read this on how being careless with adding dependencies literally broke the internet.

You can just add a plus to the end of each, although it's not recommended as sometimes new libs will break your code.
dependencies {
compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.3.0+'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxandroid:1.0.1+'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxjava:1.0.14+'
}

Here are the latest:
dependencies {
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.3.0'
compile 'io.reactivex:rxandroid:1.2.0' // Upgraded
compile 'io.reactivex:rxjava:1.1.5' // Upgraded
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
}
check here

How can i use the build.gandle on xamarn?

I work with Android and I use some libraries on dependencies (build.gandle).
example:
dependencies {
compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.2.0'
compile 'info.hoang8f:fbutton:1.0.5'
compile 'com.nineoldandroids:library:2.4.0'
compile 'com.daimajia.easing:library:1.0.1#aar'
compile 'com.daimajia.androidanimations:library:1.1.3#aar'
compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.2.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:8.4.0'
}
I'm new in xamarin development and I wanna know if there something which i can use my android libraries on xamarin
thank you

I think you can make use of Xamarin.GradleBindings, Visual Studio extension, creates Xamarin Android Binding projects from external dependencies ids via gradle.
How do java developers add dependencies to their projects? Yes that's right, via gradle (something like this or that). As you can see some java-projects use those dependencies a lot (all you want to write is already written) so it'd be nice to use those huge amount of 3rd party libraries in your Xamarin project, right? I believe this Add-in for Visual Studio 2013 (and lately for Xamarin Studio) will help you with it:
Step 1: Execute the command over "References" folder
Step 2: Set an external dependency id and a name for Xamarin Android Binding Project (will be generated). This dialog will allow you to specify custom repositories as well soon.
The Plugin executes gradle scripts and receives dependencies list (including transitive ones). At this step you can select or deselect needed binaries (transitive dependencies are deselected by default).NOTE: you'd better use "Xamarin Components" or directly NuGet for Support dependencies(v4, RecyclerView, AppCompact, etc..).
Step 3: The binding project will be generated but you still may have to fix some issues via Metadata.xml because the Add-in is not smart enough.
Step 4: Now you are ready to use them! i.e. the Material Dialogs:
Reference :
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/3a3257c7-473a-4790-9610-9a561eed0b8c
https://github.com/cfraz89/xamarin-gradle-plugins

How to run ProGuard on Android tests?

We have a project with some library (and native) dependencies, like this:
Native SDK ← Library (Wrapper) ← Main Project
To start with, this structure cannot be changed, as we are reusing the parts. The problem I am facing is passing the 65k reference limit. This, of course, has a workaround - enable ProGuard. With it enabled, the project compiles.
Since we are transitioning to the Android's default testing framework, we need to add some more dependencies to the testing config, so in dependencies we now have:
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:7.5.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-gcm:7.5.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-safetynet:7.5.0'
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:22.2.1'
compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:22.2.1'
compile files('libs/small-library1.jar')
compile files('libs/small-library2.jar')
compile files('libs/small-library3.jar')
compile files('libs/medium-library1.jar')
compile files('libs/medium-library2.jar')
compile files('libs/medium-library3.jar')
compile files('libs/huge-library1.jar')
compile files('libs/huge-library2.jar')
androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:runner:0.3'
androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:rules:0.3'
androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.2'
We are using SDK (API) 22, so everything is pretty much at the latest version. The problem is, our native SDK has a bunch of code in the protobuf layer, and the library wrapper is big. With all other JARs, we are too high over the 65k limit (but as I said, ProGuard fixes this barely). Multi-dex is out of the question as it works well only on Android 5.0+.
We're trying to reduce the codebase, but even then, Android Tests are failing with method reference overflow issues (i.e. not compiling).
Is there any way to enable ProGuard for tests as well?

One option is to change your test build using testBuildType to the release build or another build variant that has ProGuard enabled. See Gradle User Guide. You can also try the solution here, but I have not tried that myself.

Why incremental in gradle dependency is bad?

I've heard that using incremental dependency in Gradle is bad.
like this
dependencies {
compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:22.+'
}
Is that so? Why?

There are two primary issues with using wildcard dependency versions:
First, you lose control over when you update. This means that you could potentially get a bad version of the library, or pull down a good version that introduces breaking changes before you are ready to address those changes.
Second, your builds are no longer reproducible. If in a few months you decide you need to build the exact version of the app that you had on May 28th, 2015, you will find that task much more difficult because you don't know what the precise version of the library you were using on that date. If you simply check out the code from that date, you are receiving whatever version is currently the latest instead of what the latest version was on that date.

How can I add BaseGameUtils to Chrome Cast project?

I'm trying to add a Leader Board to a Chrome cast project and am getting errors. Android project in Android Studio. In my gradle build - Error: more than one library with package name 'com.google.android.gms'
I understand why you don't want to use two different libraries with the same name, but not sure how to use the same library throughout the project. Here are the two uses of gms:
1) Main activity has dependency on 'CastCompanionLibrary-android-master' which then uses google-play-services_lib. I'm not sure which version of gms this uses, but the version number is referenced in the manifest. Is this just grabbing the version # of play services that they have installed on their phone?
2) BaseGameUtils - has dependency on com.google.android.gms:play-services:+ (I think this is grabbing the most recent version of play-services, but doesn't match the other one.
MainActivity gradle file
dependencies {
compile project(':BaseGameUtils')
compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar')
compile project(':CastCompanionLibrary-android-master')
}
CastCompanionLibrary-android-master dependencies {
compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar')
compile project(':android-support-v7-appcompat')
compile project(':android-support-v7-mediarouter')
compile project(':google-play-services_lib')
}
BaseGameUtils dependencies {
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:20.0.+'
compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:20.0.+'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:+'
}
So, the problem (I think) is these two versions of com.google.android.gms, but how do I rectify it so that they all use the same version. I've had almost 2 years of working with Android, but this is my first question on stack overflow. Help is appreciated - Is there a guru out there that has the answer to this?

Seems like you have modified the gradle file for CCL since what you have there does not match with what CCL has in GitHub. The best approach is to only use the piece of play services that you need; for example CCL only needs the play-services-cast (besides the base, which will be pulled in automatically) so if you follow that pattern, things would look smaller (less possibility of running into the 64K dex limit) and less collisions.CCL, in Github, lists its dependency as:
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-cast:6.5+' so you might want to start using versions and also follow the recomendation I just made (same applies for any other code that you have and uses play services; just pull in what you really need)