Configuration

This project demonstrates how to consolidate configurations for Apple projects and Android projects all in one place. It also demonstrates how in-development or temporary configurations can be kept out of the mainline preventing conflicts with other team members. In addition configurations can be saved and easily applied for any number of scenarios such as developing, testing, debugging, staging, production, release, profiling and so on.

Overview

Configuration are all kept in the directory Configs and follow the following naming scheme:

[Platform]-[Project]-[BuildStyle](-Specialization).[Ext]
                                 -----------------
                                      Optional

Platform is Apple or Android. Project is the name of the project. BuildStyle is Common, Debug, Release, etc. Ext is the platform specific extension either gradle or xcconfig. Specialization (is optional) and should be a helpful yet short description of the configuration. Terms in brackets [] are required where as terms in parentheses () are optional.

Examples:

Apple-AppleApplication-Common.xcconfig
Apple-AppleApplication-Debug-experimental.xcconfig
Apple-AppleApplication-Debug-eddie-bug-345.xcconfig
...
Android-AndroidProject-Debug.gradle
Android-AndroidProject-Debug-experimental.gradle
Android-AndroidProject-Debug-eddie-bug-729.gradle
...

When software is built the developer picks one of the configurations. The build systems for each platform applies the configuration and produces a build. If the developer doesn't pick a configuration a universal default configuration is applied.

Using Configurations

If you join a team or otherwise start on a project, building should be as easy as possible. In the ideal situation the project builds with a good default configuration from a single button press in an IDE or a single command in Bash.

Configuring Configurations in Xcode

Start by making a copy of an existing xcconfig file. Make sure the new configurtation file is added to your Xcode project. From the projects's Info settings in Xcode add a new Configuration and set its configuration file to the copied xcconfig file.

Add a new scheme by selecting "New Scheme..." from the Scheme selector.

Edit the scheme and set its build configuration to the new Configuration. If the new scheme would be useful to the rest of your team, select "Shared".

Specifying a Configuration in Bash for Xcode

-xcconfig filename
  Load the build settings defined in filename when building all
  targets.  These settings will override all other settings,
  including settings passed individually on the command line.

Configuring Configurations in Android Studio

Start by making a copy of an existing gradle file in the Configs directory. Open a module's build.gradle file. In the file find the buildTypes and add an entry corresponding to the file you made in the Configs directory. Assuming your build variant is a debug build for an exiremental refactor with a corresponding config file named Android-AndroidProject-Debug-expiremental.gradle you'd name your new build variant debugExpiremental

There are four important parts in the build type for our purposes. The first important part is the line that imports our configuration using the apply from: form. The second important part is setting the variant to be debuggable by adding debuggable true. Third the build type must be set to use the implicit signing config for debug builds signingConfig signingConfigs.debug. The fourth part is to define all the build config variables the build type will use. This is done by adding lines of the form buildConfigField "type", "NAME_OF_VAR_IN_JAVA", "NameOfVar"

A sample build type block follows:

buildTypes {
    ...
    debugExpiremental {
        // import our variant config file
        apply from: '../../Configs/Android-AndroidProject-Debug-expiremental.gradle'

        // custom build variants must be set debuggable
        debuggable true

        // custom build variants must use the implicitly defined `debug` signing config
        signingConfig signingConfigs.debug

        // declare build config fields
        buildConfigField "boolean", "VT_USE_CONFIG", VTUseConfig
    }
    ...
}

Making changes to the gradle files in Android Studio requires a project sync to work properly.

Now that the project has been sync'd the new build variant can be selected in Android Studio by selecting the 'Build Variants' panel and then selecting the desired build variant from the dropdown list.

Specifiying a Configuration in Bash for Android Builds

How It Works

#if defined(VT_USE_CONFIG) && VT_USE_CONFIG
    NSLog(@"use config");
#else
    NSLog(@"not using config");
#endif

eddieh/Configuration