Is R.java file generated by Android SDK on each compile or only when new resources are added using Eclipse? Do I need to put it under version control or not?
The R.java file is generated during resource compilation by aapt tool. You shouldn't add it to source control system.
Also, you should have noted the gen folder where R.java is placed. Your version control system should ignore this folder altogether, not only R.java file inside it. Because this folder is deleted on clean build (not sure about eclipse, but ant script definitely deletes it).
When using Git to control Android projects I add
bin/*
gen/
to .gitignore
You don't need to put it under version control. I think it's on each compile, one every new resource or clean up project.. but need to test to be sure.
I have had projects with R in and out of source control. Both worked.
When the android SDK is loaded into eclipse, it will automatically generate the R.java file. In older versions of the adt, having an incorrect R.java file would give an error, but I believe this is fixed now, and it shouldn't matter either way. If you have the choice though, avoid checking it in.
I would add it to svn:ignore.
Related
Every project created in Android Studio 1.0.2 contains several files that reference the project's own absolute path. I can't even move my own project directory if I want to, let alone share the project with other developers.
Excluding files in app/build, these are the files containing absolute paths:
.idea/workspace.xml
.idea/modules.xml
.idea/libraries/support_v4_21_0_3.xml
.idea/libraries/appcompat_v7_21_0_3.xml
.idea/gradle.xml
.gradle/2.2.1/taskArtifacts/taskArtifacts.bin
.gradle/2.2.1/taskArtifacts/fileSnapshots.bin
app/app.iml
How do I force Android Studio to use relative paths for everything?
Edit: By experimenting with vanilla IDEA, I've narrowed down the origin of these absolute paths to a specific type of module, which Android Studio apparently always uses without offering you a choice. But I'm still no closer to understanding how to eradicate them.
In IDEA 14.0.2, if you create an empty project or an Android project with an "Application Module", the project does not contain any absolute paths. If you create a project with a "Gradle: Android Module", then it contains absolute paths in the same files as an Android Studio project.
Edit #2: Created IDEA-134587
In general, don't consider any of the .iml files or the contents of the .idea folder to be part of the project, and don't share any of those files, don't check them into source control, and don't move them with the project. Think of them as cache files.
The Gradle files are the source of truth, so if you're having troubles with absolute paths, close the project, delete the non-shareable files, and re-import it from the Gradle build scripts.
I ran into the exact same problem, but the solution suggested above contradicts JetBrains' advice as well as this answer. Also, my co-worker working from the same source code (with unexpanded paths) and Android Studio version wasn't having the problem, so I kept banging my head against the wall.
We eventually solved the problem when we realized that many of the paths I used included symlinks. In my case, I had a symlink set up for ~/work so that it pointed to /some/drive/with/space. Within Android Studio all of my source was referred to from ~/work/source rather than /some/drive/with/space/source. When I changed everything so that Android Studio referred to things with their actual paths, the $PROJECT_DIR$ and $MODULE_DIR$ variables magically started working and my .iml files were no longer getting corrupted. YMMV.
TL;DR: Don't use symlinks in your project paths!
Also, be sure to not keep the files within .gradle as part of your shared project.
Also, one set of files that you might want to share though are your files under .idea/copyright though as that allows you to have shared copyright settings.
So a possible .gitignore file might be:
.gradle
.idea
!.idea/copyright/[YourCopyrightFile].xml
!.idea/copyright/profile_settings.xml
*.iml
build
local.properties
Hmm. I just don't see the same absolute paths in those files, I only see references to MODULE_DIR and PROJECT_DIR, such as:
./app/app.iml: <excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/build/intermediates/lint" />
or:
./.idea/workspace.xml: <entry file="file://$PROJECT_DIR$/.idea/libraries/appcompat_v7_21_0_2.xml">
I wonder if this is Linux issue only, or something in your settings?
After switching to my release branch the project had a missing gen file so I added the gen file from java build path.
Now the assets and the res folders are show like gray packages and not folders and I get the errors like res/values/ is missing.
How to return to the standard android project structure in eclipse?
Is there a standard way of returning to the standard Android project. I have become tired to fix project properties and I have tried to clean and restart eclipse It seams that some project metadata is saved the wrong way.
Thanks .
/gen/ folder is automatically generated during compilation. You should include that and /bin/ and also /.properties/ to .gitignore to avoid having to fix properties all the time and also minimise the amount of unnecessary data stored in your repo.
I'm using ActionBarSherlock as a library. We haven't included ABS into our repository so everyone participating our project must download and install it separately. ActioBarSherlock is an Android library project and I have got it running by opening it and my project in the same Eclipse's workspace (neither of those are copied into workspace, they both exists in another folder) and adding it into my project.properties by following this:
Referencing a library project.
That reference path is relative and since everyone might have ABS in different folder, we also have different paths in Eclipse's project.properties file as android.library.reference.1. Is there any way locally override that library path so that we can have project.properties in our repo but Eclipse will use locally some other path? Currently I have to manually fix that path after every time I pull from our repo because of different paths.
There exists other *.properties files but Eclipse ignores them:
local.properties
Customizable computer-specific properties for the build system. If you use Ant to build the project, this contains the path to the SDK installation. Because the content of the file is specific to the local installation of the SDK, the local.properties should not be maintained in a source revision control system. If you use Eclipse, this file is not used.
ant.properties
Customizable properties for the build system. You can edit this file to override default build settings used by Ant and also provide the location of your keystore and key alias so that the build tools can sign your application when building in release mode. This file is integral to the project, so maintain it in a source revision control system. If you use Eclipse, this file is not used.
Just have each person put it in projectroot/libs. The newer (ADT 17 and above, IIRC) versions of the ADT will automatically pick it up and compile it into your app. Note that the folder is libs, with an s, and not lib. Using /lib won't work.
Options:
project.properties: You could create a link in every users home folder, libs and have the path in the project.properties refer to ~/libs
Using a common library:
Create a library project called "common". In settings, have it export the jar. In your Android application, import the jar.
Personally I think configuring with maven would be best but the 2nd option was quickest.
What about if you ignore the project.properties in your repo? That way each user can keep their own and you won't need to override it all the time. I don't think you can override that locally.
Another option to simplify things is you can export the project as a JAR file instead of referencing it as a library project. If you don't need to modify ABS code you can right click the project -> java -> jar file and all the developers can keep that in the same place for the sake of simplicity.
Edit: This question is no longer needed for our project since we moved from Eclipse to Android Studio and Gradle build system. Eclipse with Maven should have worked too, as #bgs suggested.
Our previous approach:
Still looking for better alternative but so far we ended up keeping project.properties in our repo. project.properties does not get overridden if there is no changes to it when pulling. We also suggest in our README that users add this
[alias]
commit = commit -X project.properties
to their .hg/hgrc configuration file to prevent accidentally commiting changes of that file.
This method has at least one drawback: When merging, you might get error like this abort: cannot partially commit a merge (do not specify files or patterns) even when you commit your merge with hg commit -m 'merge'. If this happens, disable that alias temporarily.
I maintain an Android app and am not using Eclipse. I am not using Eclipse. I am using ant and build.xml and build.properties.
I have places my .jar file into the libs/ directory. My code compiles just dandy. But when I run it on the emulator, the output APK does not include the .jar, so I get a runtime stacktrace:
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(470): java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com.google.ads.AdView
my build.properties looks like this:
jar.libs.dir=libs
And the libs/ directory contains my .jar file.
What needs to be in build.xml so that the external .jar file is included in the APK?
Edit: In theory this answer should work, but it doesn't for me. Is it out of date? What gives? How to add external jar libraries to an android project from the command line
I just came over a similar problem and noticed that libraries should not be placed in "myprojectdir\lib". When I moved them to "myprojectdir\libs" everything started to work.
It turns out that I needed to upgrade the version of ant I was using to 1.8. During the compile process, I had been getting this error message:
Warning: Reference out.dex.jar.input.ref has not been set at runtime,
but was found duringbuild file parsing, attempting to resolve. Future
versions of Ant may support referencing ids defined in non-executed
targets.
I googled it, and found that I needed to upgrade Ant, and now I don't get this warning, and my application does not force close.
What needs to be in build.xml so that the external .jar file is included in the APK?
Just putting it in libs/ is sufficient.
my build.properties looks like this:
That line should not be necessary. It does not appear in my build.properties files that build successfully with JAR files.
If you use dexdump -f classes.dex from your project's bin/ directory, you will be able to determine whether com.google.ads.AdView made it in there. If it did not, then something is strange with your build scripts. If it did, then perhaps there is a dependent JAR that you are missing (though I would expect a VerifyError in that case).
You use 3rd party library, but you seem didn't run DX on it. Make sure that not only your code processed by DX tool (I assume Ant does it), but also all 3rd party libraries you use. You can look in 7Bee script I use to convert web applications to Android davlik format, so it can work for you too. You can find more about the script on Atjeews page.
Solution:
right click on the project in project tree and select Project
properties
select Java Build Path
select TAB Order
and Export
check GoogleAdMobAdsSdk-4.0.4.jar (or your
version SDK)
press OK
clean project by menu Project
-> Clean
rebuild project (Project – Build Automatically)
Very basic question. I plan to do our builds via Hudson and have android apk files available for download there. Is R.java in the /gen directory something that you check-in with you VCS? Or is it something that needs to be ignored and android sdk will generate every time if it doesn't exist?
The entire gen folder is automatically generated and shouldn't be checked into VCS.
Nothing in gen should go into your repository.
Add gen to your .gitignore to avoid mistakes/cluttered git status.
No, you don't have to include any of the gen/ files. You must exclude the gen directory itself, otherwise you could ran into problems when updating/committing to git or any other VCS.
You need to ignore this file. Ant build task create this file.