android+gradle: different manifest meta-data per flavor

Question

iI would like to define a different meta-data manifest attribute depending on the product flavor. I tried to do this,

src/
  main/
    AndroidManifest.xml
  prod/
    AndroidManifest.xml
  dev/
    AndroidManifest.xml

the main manifest is complete, but the prod and dev versions are sparse and only contain the meta-data,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          package="com.example.inventory"
          android:versionCode="1"
          android:versionName="1.0">

  <meta-data android:name="analytics"
             android:value="true"/>

</manifest>

it's my understanding that the flavor manifests will merge with the main. In my build.gradle, I do,

android {
  productFlavors {
    prod {
      manifest.srcFile "prod/AndroidManifest.xml"
    }
    dev {
      manifest.srcFile "dev/AndroidManifest.xml"
    }
  }
  ...
}

however, find i try to build "assembleProdDebug", i get this,

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating project ':Inventory'.
> No signature of method: org.gradle.api.java.archives.internal.DefaultManifest.srcFile() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.String) values: [prod/AndroidManifest.xml]

Answer 1

In your gradle file, you don't need to define the path to the manifest.

use:

productFlavors{
 prod {}
 dev{}
}

Verify that your directory structure is correct: a directory with the name of the flavour, for each flavour, under the src dir, and in each dir put the overriding manifest file.

Gradle will merge the files.

PS - if your meta-data tag is inside the application tag, you should also apply the application tag in the overriding manifest.