Android, Gradle, product flavors and the manifest

Question

In build.gradle, I have product flavors set up:

productFlavors
{
    AlternateFlavour
    {
        applicationId "com.myapp.alternateflavour"
    }
}

Then in the sourceSets section, I use different resource, assets and manifest directories for those flavours:

sourceSets {
    main {
        manifest.srcFile 'AndroidManifest.xml'
        java.srcDirs = ['src']
        res.srcDirs = ['res']
        assets.srcDirs = ['assets']
    }

    AlternateFlavour {
        manifest.srcFile 'manifest-tmp/AlternateFlavour/AndroidManifest.xml'
        java.srcDirs = ['src']
        res.srcDirs = ['res-tmp/AlternateFlavour']
        assets.srcDirs = ['assets-tmp/AlternateFlavour']
        }
   }

OK so far.

In that manifest being used by the flavor, which is in part automatically generated, I have:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.myapp.myapp"
    android:versionCode="1010001"
    android:versionName="V1.1.0.1" >

but in the original manifest in the root project is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.myapp.myapp"
    android:versionCode="1010000"
    android:versionName="V1.1.0.DEBUG" >

This causes Gradle to fail:

Error:
    Attribute manifest@versionCode value=(1010001) from AndroidManifest.xml:4:5-28
    is also present at AndroidManifest.xml:4:5-28 value=(1010000).
Attributes of <manifest> elements are not merged.

Why is it trying to merge with the original manifest at all, when I've specified it should look elsewhere?

And how can I stop this?

I expect some will question why I'm doing it this way at all, or indeed why I'm not using the suggested flavor project structure. Well, I need a normal manifest to use outside of Gradle, e.g. for deploying from Eclipse (one thing at a time please!) and I also need versions to be injected by the build process.

Answer 1

Why is it trying to merge with the original manifest at all, when I've specified it should look elsewhere?

You said the flavor manifest is elsewhere. The manifest merger process merges all relevant manifests:

• main
• the build type
• the product flavor(s)
• libraries

The manifest in main is always relevant.

And how can I stop this?

You don't, insofar as the manifest in main is always relevant.

The best solution, in general, is to get rid of versionCode and versionName from all manifests, and set them in build.gradle, where you have full programmatic control.

The next-best solution is to move the versionCode and versionName out of the main manifest into the product flavor that you're not showing here. I have never seen anyone create just one product flavor, as AFAIK it's pointless — you can only ever build that one product flavor (as AFAIK there are no flavorless builds once you introduce flavors). Product flavors usually come in groups of 2+ (e.g., the google flavor that uses Play Services and the standalone flavor that doesn't). If the values in main are really for the non-AlternateFlavour flavor, move your main version... stuff there.

Beyond that, you're welcome to review the documentation on the manifest merger process to see if you can put in the right directives to get what you want.