Proper way to add global library in android-studio/gradle

Question

First of all, I know how to add a local library to the build.gradle file, it was discussed in several questions here already (which are all basically the same), see here, here and here. But you have to hardcode the paths in the compile files('/path/to/lib.jar') statements in the build.gradle file, which isn't nice, not redistributable, etc, IF you use a library not within the project's folder structure. I prefer to maintain this library for all my projects in the same place (so it is always up to date for all projects etc.). So I would like to know how to add a library, which is not available via Maven, to an Android-Studio project using gradle, in a sane way, given that the library is added as a global library in AS's preferences.

What I have done so far:

I use Google's new Android-Studio, which uses gradle for the build management, to build an Xposed framework module. For that, I have to include an external library, XposedLibrary, which I downloaded from the respective Github repository to keep it up-to-date.

It contains the jar XposedLibrary/XposedBridgeApi.jar, which I added in AS as a global library (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S -> Global Libraries -> green plus to add the folder XposedLibrary). The compilation failed, complaining that it doesn't know the imported classes. So I had to manually add the library to the build.gradle file, adding the respective line in the dependencies like so:

dependencies {
    compile files('libs/android-support-v4.jar')
    compile files('/home/sebastian/dev/android/XposedMods/XposedLibrary/XposedBridgeApi.jar')
}

I tried out to just add compile files('XposedBridgeApi.jar') or compile files('XposedLibrary/XposedBridgeApi.jar') but this didn't work.

So, what is a nice way to add an AS global library to the dependencies without using full paths? (I don't like the idea of symlinking to the jar file from within the lib/ folder ;) )

Answer 1

when referencing a file via

files("relative/path/to/a.jar")

the relative path is evaluated relative to the buildscript this snippet is in. so when your build.gradle file is located in let's say '/a/project/build.gradle' then the jar should be in '/a/project/relative/path/to/a.jar'. In a multiproject gradle build you can put the the jar in a folder relative to the root - project and reference it in all subprojects via

rootProject.files("relative/to/root/a.jar")

hope that helps, cheers,

René