Can't add XStream file dependency to Android Studio project

Question

I have downloaded and added xstream-1.4.8.jar to my Android Studio project. When I build the project it works fine but when I try to run it I get the following error from the Gradle Build window:

Information:Gradle tasks [:app:assembleDebug]
:app:preBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:preDebugBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:compileDebugNdk UP-TO-DATE
:app:checkDebugManifest
:app:preReleaseBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportAppcompatV72103Library UP-TO-DATE
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportSupportV42103Library UP-TO-DATE
:app:prepareDebugDependencies
:app:compileDebugAidl UP-TO-DATE
:app:compileDebugRenderscript UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugBuildConfig UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugAssets UP-TO-DATE
:app:mergeDebugAssets UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugResValues UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugResources UP-TO-DATE
:app:mergeDebugResources UP-TO-DATE
:app:processDebugManifest UP-TO-DATE
:app:processDebugResources UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugSources UP-TO-DATE
:app:compileDebugJava UP-TO-DATE
:app:preDexDebug
UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION:
com.android.dx.cf.iface.ParseException: bad class file magic (cafebabe) or version (0034.0000)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.DirectClassFile.parse0(DirectClassFile.java:472)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.DirectClassFile.parse(DirectClassFile.java:406)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.DirectClassFile.parseToInterfacesIfNecessary(DirectClassFile.java:388)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.DirectClassFile.getMagic(DirectClassFile.java:251)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processClass(Main.java:704)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processFileBytes(Main.java:673)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.access$300(Main.java:83)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main$1.processFileBytes(Main.java:602)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.ClassPathOpener.processArchive(ClassPathOpener.java:284)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.ClassPathOpener.processOne(ClassPathOpener.java:166)
    at com.android.dx.cf.direct.ClassPathOpener.process(ClassPathOpener.java:144)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processOne(Main.java:632)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processAllFiles(Main.java:510)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.runMonoDex(Main.java:280)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.run(Main.java:246)
    at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.main(Main.java:215)
    at com.android.dx.command.Main.main(Main.java:106)
...while parsing com/thoughtworks/xstream/mapper/LambdaMapper.class
1 error; aborting
Error:Execution failed for task ':app:preDexDebug'.

com.android.ide.common.process.ProcessException: org.gradle.process.internal.ExecException: Process 'command 'C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_25\bin\java.exe'' finished with non-zero exit value 1 Information:BUILD FAILED Information:Total time: 14.974 secs Information:1 error Information:0 warnings Information:See complete output in console

I have looked at the related answers on here and none of the suggested solutions work for me.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

XStream 1.4.8 is compiled for Java 8 and the latest version Android supports is Java 7.

One solution is to use XStream 1.4.7, that works with Android, and another to download XStream 1.4.8 sources and compile them yourself. In that case you will have to remove LambdaMapper.java and possibly some other problematic classes.

Also you can have issues with different versions of xmlpull parser used. In that case you can exclude one from compiling.

compile('com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream:1.4.7') {
    exclude group: 'xmlpull', module: 'xmlpull'
}