Cordova 7 - config.xml or package.json?

Question

I've successfully created and released an application on Cordova - so I'm not new to the platform, but it wasn't without its hiccups and frustrations.

With Cordova 7, we now have config.xml and package.json, largely containing the same information.

If I want to change, say the version number, or the title, which one do I edit and how do I then update the other file accordingly?

Nothing I've tried seems to work, and it seems rather redundant to have to make the changes twice?

Answer 1

As an evolution to this question, it looks like Cordova 9.0.0 has decided to stop syncing the config.xml and package.json files now. So the package.json is the primary location for platform/plugin info, which seems very strange to anyone with significant Cordova experience.

I didn't see this announced anywhere obvious, but stumbled into it while using 9.0.0, and confirmed below:

• https://cordova.apache.org/announcements/2019/03/18/cordova-lib-release-9.0.0.html

Changes include: GH-750 Remove saving platforms/plugins to config.xml

• https://github.com/apache/cordova-lib/pull/750

Answer 2

EDIT: This is no longer accurate, as of Cordova 9. There is an issue to document this in the docs, which has not been addressed yet. It seems as currently the plan is to migrate away from config.xml entirely, however that does not seem to be complete.

See also this answer.

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From what i can read at the Cordova 7 Release Notes, the package.json will always be created to mirror the config.xml whenever you run cordova prepare, if it does not exist. If a package.json does exist, it will take preference (but only for the things defined in it, like plugins and platforms, for other config options config.xml will still be used).

So, it might be a solution for you to save your settings in config.xml, and always delete the package.json before running cordova prepare, maybe with a custom npm script.