detecting build configuration (debug or release) within ant script

Question

I have an ant script that does what it needs to do, but I need to set a few property values based on whether I'm running release or debug. How do I do this?

If it makes a difference, my ant script runs some custom utility tasks before performing android build.

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To answer my own question:

The properties to look for are "build.mode.release" and "build.mode.debug", however there IS a caveat ... if your manifest has debuggable="true", the system REVERTS to debug mode with a slight 'short-coming' (IMO)

1. build.mode.release is NOT set,
2. build.mode.debug is ALSO not set
3. Debug signing is disabled (you have to provide a keystore, alias, and password)

Note: This applies only to Android builds

Answer 1

The reason for the "caveat" is actually documented in the Android main_rules.xml project ($ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/tools/ant/main_rules.xml):

<target name="-set-release-mode">
    <!-- release mode is only valid if the manifest does not explicitly
         set debuggable to true. default is false.
         We actually store build.packaging.debug, not build.release -->
    <xpath input="AndroidManifest.xml" expression="/manifest/application/@android:debuggable"
            output="build.packaging.debug" default="false"/>
    ...
</target>

So what you want to check for is build.mode.debug (executed via ant debug), build.mode.release (when @debuggable=false and executed with ant release), and finally to meet your caveat: build.packaging.debug (when @debuggable=true and executed with ant release)

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Here's an example that would work pre-compile automatically:

<target name="-my-debug-precompile" if="build.mode.debug">
  <!-- This is executed for any "debug" build ("ant debug") -->
</target>

<target name="-my-release-precompile" unless="build.mode.debug">
  <!-- This is executed for any non-"debug" build (e.g., "ant release",
       regardless of the @debuggable attribute in AndroidManifest.xml) -->
</target>

<!-- This is called automatically by Android's ant tasks, and delegates the
     task to one of the above two targets: -->
<target name="-pre-compile" depends="-my-debug-precompile,-my-release-precompile" />