Gson Not mapping data in Production Mode APK Android

Question

I am using Gson to Map data into ArrayList. It's working fine while running app on device or in debug mode but it is not mapping data in Production Mode APK. Here is the Code

Const.courses = new ArrayList<>();
    Log.v("Courses",object.toString());
    Type type = new TypeToken<ArrayList<Course>>() {
    }.getType();

    if(object != null && object.has("data") ){

        try {
            if(object.get("data") != null && object.getJSONArray("data").length()>0) {
                Const.courses.clear();
                Const.courses = new GsonBuilder().create().fromJson(object.getJSONArray("data").toString(), type);

                Log.d("Course from Array",Const.courses.get(0).getTitle());

  adapter = new CourseAdapter(getApplicationContext(), R.layout.course_row_layout, Const.courses);
                listView.setDivider(new ColorDrawable(ContextCompat.getColor(getApplicationContext(), android.R.color.transparent)));
                listView.setAdapter(adapter);
            }else{
                tvSelectCourse.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                tvNoCourse.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Here is The Logcat. Any help will be Appreciated.

    02-16 23:30:57.836 1234-1234/? V/Courses: {"contentEncoding":null,"contentType":null,"data":[{"id":1,"title":"course Updated"},{"id":12,"title":"Arabic"},{"id":13,"title":"usman"},{"id":14,"title":"really "},{"id":15,"title":"urdu"},{"id":17,"title":"abc"},{"id":21,"title":"course"},{"id":22,"title":"Ali don"},{"id":24,"title":"umair"},{"id":25,"title":"math"},{"id":27,"title":"world"},{"id":28,"title":"wether"},{"id":33,"title":"computer Science "},{"id":34,"title":"cs"},{"id":37,"title":"maths"},{"id":38,"title":"hello"},{"id":39,"title":"course Updated"},{"id":42,"title":"for testing purpose"}],"jsonRequestBehavior":0,"maxJsonLength":null,"recursionLimit":null}
02-16 23:30:57.852 1234-1234/? D/AndroidRuntime: Shutting down VM
02-16 23:30:57.859 1234-1234/? E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
                                                 Process: com.umer.doratiteacher, PID: 1234
                                                 java.lang.NullPointerException: println needs a message
                                                     at android.util.Log.println_native(Native Method)
                                                     at android.util.Log.d(Log.java:139)
                                                     at com.umer.doratiteacher.MainActivity$3.a(Unknown Source)
                                                     at com.umer.doratiteacher.d.a$3.a(Unknown Source)
                                                     at com.umer.doratiteacher.d.a$3.a(Unknown Source)
                                                     at com.a.a.a.i.a(Unknown Source)
                                                     at com.a.a.e$a.run(Unknown Source)
                                                     at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
                                                     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
                                                     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:234)
                                                     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5526)
                                                     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                                                     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:726)
                                                     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616)

Answer 1

As has been said, the problem arises from Proguard (when minifyEnabledtrue). Proguard gets rid of Type which GSON needs for parsing.

Based on this link, https://github.com/google/gson/blob/master/examples/android-proguard-example/proguard.cfg, I was able to get my code to work by only adding 3 lines

# Gson uses generic type information stored in a class file when working with fields. Proguard
# removes such information by default, so configure it to keep all of it.
-keepattributes Signature

# Gson specific classes
-keep class sun.misc.Unsafe { *; }
#-keep class com.google.gson.stream.** { *; }

# Application classes that will be serialized/deserialized over Gson
-keep class com.example.YourPackage.** { *; }

The last line is the name of the package your code is in. If you have all of your code in one main package (all of the java files in one directory) or only have GSON parsing in one file, then substitute last line for this (I've tested the above but have not test the following)

-keep class com.example.YourPackage.YourClass.** { *; }