Android Gradle Plugin 2.2.0 (September 2016)

Dependencies:
Minimum version Default version Notes
Gradle 2.14.1 2.14.1 To learn more, see updating Gradle.
SDK Build Tools 23.0.2 23.0.2 Install or configure SDK Build Tools.
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:

    Groovy

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

    Kotlin

    android {
  ...
  signingConfigs {
    create("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:

      Groovy

      android {
  ...
  defaultConfig {
    ...
    javaCompileOptions {
      annotationProcessorOptions {
        className 'com.example.MyProcessor'
        // Arguments are optional.
        arguments = [ foo : 'bar' ]
      }
    }
  }
}

      Kotlin

      android {
  ...
  defaultConfig {
    ...
    javaCompileOptions {
      annotationProcessorOptions {
        className = "com.example.MyProcessor"
        // Arguments are optional.
        arguments(mapOf(foo to "bar"))
      }
    }
  }
}

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

      Groovy

      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
}

      Kotlin

      dependencies {
    implementation("com.google.dagger:dagger:2.0")
    annotationProcessor("com.google.dagger:dagger-compiler:2.0")
   // or use buildVariantAnnotationProcessor to target a specific build variant
}

      • 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