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I am trying to automate the android build process using Jenkins

I am using the following site to achieve this Link to site

I am successfully able to Build it on my own machine. Initially i got error saying that build.xml file not found (build using ant requires this file). So i execute "android update project". So it automatically generate all necessary file for ant.

Now my problem begins when i tried to host my repo to remote server and tried to build from another machine. The error it is giving is the sdk.dir is not correct. When i analysed the project folder ther is a file called local.properties which contains the SDK path of my first machine which is wrong for other machines. So i add that file to gitignore. Now that file is not tracking and because of this the build is failing.

So is there any way to automatically generate the files that is necessary for ant after jenkins is cloning project from the remote repo?

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6 Answers 6

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From the website you link to, they precisely explain how to configure sdk.dir:

Configuring the environment

When jenkins builds your project with Ant, it needs to know where your android sdk folder is. To do this, click Advanced on the Ant target build step you just configured and add the following variable to the Properties field. sdk.dir=/opt/android-sdk-linux/

Don’t forget to substitute the value of the variable with the correct location where the Android SDK is installed on your build server.

Job configuration is done. Click Save. Time to test your build.

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2 Comments

i already provide the correct SDK in jenkins server but somehow it is taking the path from the tracked local.properties file only
Indeed... local.properties should definitely not be tracked in your VCS: it defines the variables specific to each developer environment (hence the name)
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We also build android apps with Jenkins, and also need to edit the local.properties.

In my case, I have the file updated with the path to SDK by the Jenkins build itself. Just before the build starts.

You can use a simple sed command on linux or echo the content on windows (overwriting content).

Example flow:

  1. SCM - get sources
  2. Edit the local.properties (as suggested before)
  3. Run ant build

Note - if you are using the "Invoke Ant", you should add an "Execute Shell" step before to deal with the editing of the local.properties.

I hope this helps.

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3 Comments

can you explain little more. i am using mac
This works, but if you're using "Invoke Ant", you don't need to bother creating/updating local.properties, as you can pass the SDK path in the Ant "sdk.dir" variable. Also this isn't particularly scalable when you have multiple projects (e.g. depending on library projects, or test projects).
local.properties should definitely not be tracked in your VCS: it defines the variables specific to each developer environment (hence the name)
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Yes.

If you install the Android Emulator Plugin for Jenkins, you can add the "Create Android build files" build step to your job.

This will automatically detect any Android app, test or library projects in your Jenkins workspace and add/update the build.xml and local.properties files as necessary.

Alternatively, if you're using the Ant build step and already have the build.xml in your repository, you can ignore the need to create a local.properties file, by specifying the sdk.dir property yourself in the Advanced Ant options.

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1

You can configure ant properties in jenkins. So you can specify all properties of your local.properties through the jenkins job configuration.

Of course you will have to install the android sdk on the jenkins build server.

Please read this for info on how setting ant properties with jenkins.

It's not a good practice to put the local.properties under source code management since multiple developers and CI will have different values for those properties.

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you can edit the local.properties file in the jenkins workspace folder to the correct sdk path

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How? This doesn't answer the question about automatically generating these files...
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I think you want to add the build step "Create Android build files" to your configuration. Place it before the ant build. This invokes the android update project and android update lib-project. Make sure you referenced your library dependencies in the project.properties with relative paths. Like this:

# Project target. target=Google Inc.:Google APIs:19 android.library.reference.1=../external-libs/google-play-services_lib android.library.reference.2=../external-libs/android-support-v7-appcompat

add Build Step - Create Android build files

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