Adding the Support Library Build Within Another Build

Would you like to make a change in Support Library and have it be propagated to your downstream Gradle build (generally an app) without having to separately build Support Library and then build your application?

To build Support Library as part of your existing Gradle build

  • To add the Support Library build
    • Add apply(from: '<support-lib-repo-root>/frameworks/support/include-support-library.gradle') to your settings.gradle
  • If your project is an Android app, also update some dependencies:
    • Open your local.properties file and update the value of sdk.dir .
      • It should point to <support-lib-repo-root>/prebuilts/fullsdk-<platform> .
      • For example, ~/support-library/prebuilts/fullsdk-linux .
    • In your build.gradle, update any versions that refer to previous versions of Support Library.
      • To determine the correct version, find the SDK with the highest number among SDKs in the Support Library repo.

        echo <support-lib-repo-root>/prebuilts/fullsdk-linux/platforms/android* | xargs -n 1 echo | sed 's/.*android-//' | tail -n 1
        

        This should output, for example, "28"

      • Update dependency versions

        • For example, you may want to replace com.android.support:app-compat-v7:26.0.2 with com.android.support:app-compat-v7:28.0.2
      • Update configuration given to the Android Gradle plugin

        • Check compileSdkVersion and make sure its version is correct