How to get current buildType in Android Gradle configuration

Question

I want to dynamically add a dependency in an Android Gradle project based on the current buildType. I know I can specify the buildType in the dependency:

compile project(path: ':lib1', configuration: 'debug')

But how can I use the current buildType to specify which variant of the library I want to import, so that a debug or release build automatically imports the debug or release variant of the library? What I want is something like this (where currentBuildType is a variable containing the name of the currently used buildType):

compile project(path: ':lib1', configuration: currentBuildType)

The library project I want to import has set publishNonDefault true, so all buildTypes are published.

Answer 1

You can use

if (gradle.startParameter.taskNames.contains("assembleExample")) {
    // do stuff
}

That variable will be set before the buildConfig block is evaluated

Answer 2

I could not find a clean way to get the current build type during the configuration phase of Gradle. Instead I define the dependency for each build type separately like that:

debugCompile project(path: ':lib1', configuration: 'debug')
releaseCompile project(path: ':lib1', configuration: 'release')

If you have many build types and many project dependencies this can get very verbose, but it is possible to add a function to make the dependency a one-liner. You need to add this to your main Gradle build file:

subprojects {
    android {
        dependencies.metaClass.allCompile { dependency ->
            buildTypes.each { buildType ->
                "${buildType.name}Compile" project(path: ":${dependency.name}", configuration: buildType.name)
            }
        }
    }
}

Then you can add project dependencies in your Gradle modules like this:

allCompile project(':lib1')

If you also use build flavors you would have to adapt the solution. See this link for a documentation of the feature: http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user-guide#TOC-Library-Publication

Please note that the Android team is working on an improvement for this behaviour: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=52962

Answer 3

Add a task which depends on each assembleXxx task and property setting up after it invoked

ext {
    currentConfig = ""
}
task generateConfigProperty(dependsOn: 'installDebug') {

    android.applicationVariants.all { variant ->
        variant.outputs.each { output ->

            def taskName = "taskindicate$output.name"
            task "$taskName"() << {
                project.ext.set("currentConfig", "$output.name")
            }
            output.assemble.dependsOn "taskindicate$output.name"
        }
    }

}

task getConfig(dependsOn: ['installDebug', 'generateConfigProperty']) << {
    println("My config is $currentConfig")
}

took idea from the answer