I am using Ivy 2.3.0 and IvyDE (2.2.0beta1) together with the Android
SDK (rev 19) to manage dependencies in a collection of Android projects.
I have multiple Android projects, each with an ivy.xml file describing
dependencies. Some of these Android projects are so-called Android
library projects, others are Android application projects. My goal is
to produce artifacts from Android library projects that can be published
and subsequently used in another Android project as a dependency via
Ivy. (Strictly speaking, Android library projects currently have no
exportable jar artifact. The claim is that this will be supported in
future revs of the Android SDK. None the less, the SDK does produce a
"classes.jar" file that I am using as the library project artifact.
This is working for my purposes.) I have more or less been successful
in accomplishing this...I can produce artifacts from library projects
(i.e. "foo.jar"), publish them to a Nexus repo and subsequently use
these artifacts in another Android project by declaring an appropriate
dependency in ivy.xml associated with the referring Android project. I
have a small Ant build wrapper that resolves dependencies and retrieves
the resolved dependencies, placeing them into the proper place in the
referring Android project (libs/) such that the stock Android SDK Ant
build can pick them up and use them. All is well.
Of course, I would like all of this to work in Eclipse via IvyDE when I
am working on a collection of Android projects and library projects that
they depend on within a workspace. Having recently discovered the IvyDE
workspace resolver, I elected to try this to manage dependencies between
Android projects and dependent library projects. Note that I am trying
to avoid having the Android project declare its dependency on a library
project using the stock Android SDK mechanism (via project.properties).
If I can avoid having to declare Android project library dependencies
via the stock Android SDK mechanisms I can avoid having to modify my
project files when working in Eclipse versus when working with the
command line build.
I have setup IvyDE to retrieve dependencies into the libs/ directory. I
have done this by editing the Ivy classpath container configuration as
follows:
- Build the classpath with: retrieved artifacts
- Retrieve pattern: libs/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]
- Delete old retrieved artifacts: true
- Types: *
I have also enabled "Resolve dependencies in workspace" and ensured that
my ivy.xml files have a status="integration" per the IvyDE workspace
resolver instructions.
This configuration ensures that the AndroidDependencies classpath
container (provided by the Android SDK) will properly pickup project
dependencies from the libs/ directory. This works fine for external
dependencies (given that there is an actual artifact that can be copied
into the libs/ directory for the AndroidDependencies classpath container
to pick up), but not with Android library project dependencies that the
workspace resolver deals with. The IvyDE workspace resolver appears to
be working correctly as far as placing workspace dependencies into the
Ivy classpath container, but there is no apparent way to insert a
reference into the AndroidDependencies classpath container so that the
project will build correctly with the library project dependencies.
I suppose one might suggest that this is a deficiency with the
AndroidDependencies classpath container. Another way would be to have
the workspace resolver somehow inject an artifact from the workspace
dependency that can be "retrieved" and copied via a retrieve pattern
into the libs/ directory for the AndroidDependencies classpath container
to pickup. I'm not clear what the kind of reference the workspace
resolver injects into the Ivy classpath container.
Any insight appreciated.
ba
