APK filename and buildpath hardcoded in capacitor/cli

[mrambow]

Hi,

we're using ionic 5 with capacitor 3 and having difficulties to get the livereload to work for our debug app.
We get following error from capacitor run android --livereload:
native-run Caught fatal error: [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'MyProjectPath\android\app\build\outputs\apk\debug\app-debug.apk']

After some digging (and failing to understand the gradle config build steps) I saw following lines in the capacitor run code:

capacitor/cli/src/android/run.ts

Line 32 in 9a6e74e

const apkName = 'app-debug.apk';

capacitor/cli/src/config.ts

Line 230 in 9a6e74e

const buildOutputDir = `${appDir}/build/outputs/apk/debug`;

Is there any possibility to change the name of the APK and the build path from the outside?

[jcesarmobile]

Yeah, they are hardcoded because that's where capacitor apps get build with gradle command.
Did you change something in your gradle files to build somewhere else or with a different name?

[mrambow]

Yes, we added productFlavours in gradle, but didn't touch the build part.
Gradle is generating the files in
MyProjectPath\android\app\build\outputs\apk\%flavorName%\debug|release\something.apk

[jcesarmobile]

Can you be more specific?

[mrambow]

Sure, just tell me what you want to see!

partial build.gradle:

buildTypes {
    release {
      minifyEnabled false
      proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
    }
  }

  flavorDimensions 'stage'

  productFlavors {
    beta {
      dimension 'stage'
      versionNameSuffix '-beta'
      applicationId "de.com.stuff"
      signingConfig signingConfigs.beta
      manifestPlaceholders = [appLabel: "Name", customUrlScheme: "de.com.stuff"]
    }

    qa {
      dimension 'stage'
      versionNameSuffix '-beta'
      applicationId "de.com.stuff.beta"
      signingConfig signingConfigs.beta
      manifestPlaceholders = [appLabel: "Name QS", customUrlScheme: "de.com.stuff.beta"]
    }

    production {
      dimension 'stage'
      applicationId "de.com.stuff.prod"
      signingConfig signingConfigs.production
      manifestPlaceholders = [appLabel: "Name Prod", customUrlScheme: "de.com.stuff.prod"]
    }
  }
}

[gabides]

I have the same issue, we have several flavors and the path to our built APKs is not the one hardcoded so none of our flavors are building with the capacitor run android command.

One solution would be to make this path customizable in the capacitor.config.json, or maybe add a --flavor argument to the CLI when running capacitor run android.

[gabides]

I have opened a PR with solution 1 which solves the issue on my side (#4757), @jcesarmobile would something like this be acceptable?

with my changes @mrambow could set in the capacitor config :

config.android. buildOutputApkName = "something.apk"
config.android.buildOutputDirCustom = "build\outputs\apk\%flavorName%\debug|release"

[jcesarmobile]

I've sent a similar PR that only adds flavor configuration option in the capacitor config file and build the apk name and directory based on it, I think that's simpler for users.
Tested with the flavor examples provided by mrambow and works fine.

[gabides]

Nice, I have tested my project with @capacitor/cli on your branch and it works as expected, I agree it's simpler to just set the flavor inside the config.

[dragermrb]

Hi!

Sorry to comment on a closed issue.

I usually rename outputs apk with this gradle config:

// File android/app/build.gradle
android{
   // ...
   // Rename outputs apk
    applicationVariants.all {
        variant ->
            variant.outputs.each {
              output->
                  output.outputFileName  = "AppName-${variant.name}-v${variant.versionName}.apk"
            }
    }
   // ...
}

This produces apk files like MyApp-debug-v1.0.0.apk which cannot be deployed with ionic cap run android.

Capacitor could get final apkName from android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/output-metadata.json so it will always be accurate. For example

  // File cli/src/android/run.ts, line ~32

  const metadata = require(`${config.android.buildOutputDirAbs}/output-metadata.json`);
  const apkName = metadata.elements[0].outputFile;

  const apkPath = resolve(
    config.android.buildOutputDirAbs,
    apkName
  );

  //...

  await runTask(
    `Deploying ${c.strong(apkName)} to ${c.input(target.id)}`,
    async () => runNativeRun(nativeRunArgs),
  );

I can make a PR if you want. What do you think?

[ionitron-bot]

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