Building an Android project from the command line with Docker

Question

I inherited Android Java-code in my company, without Gradle-files etc, and I want to be able to compile this on my dev-server (I program from a ChromeOS machine, hence a CLI SSH connection to a server where I do dev stuff). Now I found some Docker images like this one (which doesn't even have a working command line example) but I haven't managed to create an APK yet. What am I missing and how would you do this?

Answer 1

You have three steps to do:

1. Migrate your project to gradle.

   It isn't too difficult since there are plenty of gradle project out there and you can try to follow them or just read "Migrating to Gradle" article.

2. Build project with gradle on local machine.

   If you migrated properly you can build your project in terminal like:

   ./gradlew assembleDebug

   but it might be also assembleDevDebug or assembleProdRelease which depends on your buildType and flavor in gradle. Check which assembles are available by running:

   ./gradlew tasks

3. Build project using Docker.

   Based on image you linked:

   docker run -t -i ksoichiro/android -v /path/to/project:/workspace -w workspace /bin/sh -c "./gradlew assembleDebug"