Android Plugin for Gradle Release Notes


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Android Plugin for Gradle Release Notes

In this document

Update the Android Plugin for Gradle Version
Update the Gradle Version
Revisions

The Android Studio build system is based on Gradle, and the Android plugin for Gradle adds several features that are specific to building Android apps. Although the Android plugin is typically
updated in lock-step with Android Studio, the plugin (and the rest of the Gradle system) can run independent of Android Studio and be updated separately.
This page explains how to keep your Gradle tools up to date and what's in the recent
updates.
For details about how to configure your Android builds with Gradle, see the following pages:
Configure Your Build
Android Plugin DSL Reference
Gradle DSL Reference
For more information about the Gradle build system, see the Gradle
user guide.

Update the Android Plugin for Gradle

When you update Android Studio, you may receive a prompt to automatically update the Android plugin for Gradle to the latest available version. You can choose to accept the update or manually specify a version
based on your project's build requirements.
You can specify the Android plugin for Gradle version
in either the File > Project Structure > Project menu in Android Studio, or the top-level

build.gradle

 file.
The plugin version applies to all modules built in that Android Studio project. The following example sets the Android plugin for Gradle to version 2.2.0 from the 

build.gradle

 file:

buildscript {
  ...
  dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.0'
  }
}

Caution: You should not use dynamic dependencies in version numbers, such as 

'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.+'

.
Using this feature can cause unexpected version updates and difficulty resolving version differences.
If the specified plugin version has not been downloaded, Gradle downloads it the next time you build your project or click Tools > Android > Sync
Project with Gradle Files from the Android Studio menu bar.

Update Gradle

When you update Android Studio, you may receive a prompt to also update Gradle to the latest available version. You can choose to accept the update or manually specify a version based on your project's build
requirements.
The following table lists which version of Gradle is required for each version of the Android plugin for Gradle. For the best performance, you should use the latest possible version of both Gradle and the
Android plugin.

Plugin version	Required Gradle version
1.0.0 - 1.1.3	2.2.1 - 2.3
1.2.0 - 1.3.1	2.2.1 - 2.9
1.5.0	2.2.1 - 2.13
2.0.0 - 2.1.2	2.10 - 2.13
2.1.3+	2.14.1+

You can specify the Gradle version in either the File > Project Structure > Project menu
in Android Studio, or by editing the Gradle distribution reference in the 

gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties

 file.
The following example sets the Gradle version to 2.14.1 in the 

gradle-wrapper.properties

 file.

...
distributionUrl = https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.14.1-all.zip
...

Revisions

For a summary of known issues in Android plugin for Gradle, visit the Android Tools Project
Site.


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 2.2.0 (September 2016)
Dependencies:
Gradle 2.14.1 or higher.
Build Tools 23.0.2 or higher.
New:
Uses Gradle 2.14.1, which includes performance improvements and new features, and fixes a security vulnerability that allows local privilege escalation when using the Gradle daemon. For more details, see the Gradle
release notes.
Using the 

externalNativeBuild
{}

 DSL, Gradle now lets you link to your native sources and compile native libraries using CMake or ndk-build. After building your native libraries, Gradle packages them into your APK. To learn more about using CMake and ndk-build with Gradle, read Add
C and C++ Code to Your Project.
When you run a build from the command line, Gradle now attempts to auto-download
any missing SDK components or updates that your project depends on. To learn more, read Auto-download
missing packages with Gradle.
A new experimental caching feature lets Gradle speed up build times by pre-dexing, storing, and reusing the pre-dexed versions of your libraries. To learn more about using this experimental feature, read the Build
Cache guide.
Improves build performance by adopting a new default packaging pipeline which handles zipping, signing, and zipaligning in
one task. You can revert to using the older packaging tools by adding 

android.useOldPackaging=true

 to
your 

gradle.properties

 file. While using the new packaging tool, the 

zipalignDebug

 task
is not available. However, you can create one yourself by calling the

createZipAlignTask(String
taskName, File inputFile, File outputFile)

 method.
APK signing now uses APK Signature Scheme v2 in addition
to traditional JAR signing. All Android platforms accept the resulting APKs. Any modification to these APKs after signing invalidates their v2 signatures and prevents installation on a device. To disable this feature, add the following to your module-level 

build.gradle

 file:

android {
...
signingConfigs {
config {
...
v2SigningEnabled false
}
}
}

For multidex builds, you can now use ProGuard rules to determine which classes Gradle should compile into your app’s main DEX file. Because the Android system loads the main DEX
file first when starting your app, you can prioritize certain classes at startup by compiling them into the main DEX file. After you create a ProGuard configuration file specifically for your main DEX file, pass the configuration file’s path to Gradle using 

buildTypes.multiDexKeepProguard

.
Using this DSL is different from using

buildTypes.proguardFiles

,
which provides general ProGuard rules for your app and does not specify classes for the main DEX file.
Adds support for the 

android:extractNativeLibs

 flag,
which can reduce the size of your app when you install it on a device. When you set this flag to 

false

 in
the 

<application>

 element
of your app manifest, Gradle packages uncompressed and aligned versions of your native libraries with your APK. This prevents 

PackageManager

 from
copying out your native libraries from the APK to the device's file system during installation and has the added benefit of making delta updates of your app smaller.
You can now specify 

versionNameSuffix

 and 

applicationIdSuffix

 for
product flavors. (Issue 59614)
Changes:

getDefaultProguardFile

 now returns the default ProGuard
files that Android plugin for Gradle provides and no longer uses the ones in the Android SDK.
Improved Jack compiler performance and features:
Jack now supports Jacoco test coverage when setting 

testCoverageEnabled

 to 

true

.
Improved support for annotation processors. Annotation processors on your classpath, such as any 

compile

 dependencies,
are automatically applied to your build. You can also specify an annotation processor in your build and pass arguments by using the

javaCompileOptions.annotationProcessorOptions
{}

 DSL in your module-level 

build.gradle

 file:

android {
...
defaultConfig {
...
javaCompileOptions {
annotationProcessorOptions {
className 'com.example.MyProcessor'

// Arguments are optional.
arguments = [ foo : 'bar' ]
}
}
}
}

If you want to apply an annotation processor at compile time but not include it in your APK, use the 

annotationProcessor

 dependency
scope:

dependencies {
compile 'com.google.dagger:dagger:2.0'
annotationProcessor 'com.google.dagger:dagger-compiler:2.0'
// or use buildVariantAnnotationProcessor to target a specific build variant
}

You can set additional flags for Jack using 

jackOptions.additionalParameters()

.
The following code snippet sets the

jack.incremental

 parameter to 

true

:

android {
defaultConfig {
...
jackOptions {
enabled true
additionalParameters("jack.incremental" : true)
}
}
...
}

For a list of parameters you can set, run the following from the command line:

java -jar /build-tools/jack.jar --help-properties

By default, if the Gradle daemon's heap size is at least 1.5 GB, Jack now runs in the same process as Gradle. To adjust the daemon heap size, add the following to your 

gradle.properties

 file:

# This sets the daemon heap size to 1.5GB.
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx1536M

Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 2.1.3 (August 2016)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 2.1.0 (April 2016)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 2.0.0 (April 2016)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.5.0 (November 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.3.1 (August 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.3.0 (July 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.2.0 (April 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.1.3 (March 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.1.2 (February 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.1.1 (February 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.1.0 (February 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.0.1 (January 2015)


Android
plugin for Gradle, revision 1.0.0 (December 2014)

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