Streamlining Your Workflow: Best-Practices for Android Dependency Management

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For Android developers, handling dependencies is crucial but can be overwhelming. An organized project with clear dependency management leads to efficient development, easier maintenance, and fewer challenges. This article explores key best-practices to ensure your Android project’s dependencies are well-managed.

Introduction

In Android development, a dependency refers to an external software component or library, which is required by an app to work appropriately. These dependencies can contain third-party libraries, frameworks, or modules that support additional functionality beyond what is available in the Android SDK. Basically, dependency management involves declaring, resolving, and managing these external dependencies within the project’s build configuration files (e.g., build.gradle). This process ensures that the required libraries are included in the project, their versions are compatible with each other, and any necessary configurations or dependencies are properly resolved over the build process. For Android developers, handling dependencies is vital for smooth project development and maintenance. A well-organized approach to dependency management ensures efficient workflows and diminishes complexities. In this essay, we will discuss key best-practices that help Android developers keep their project dependencies under control.

Versioning: The Foundation of Stability

Version control is the foundation of dependency management. Determining exact versions for each dependency is essential. This prevents unexpected changes caused by automatic updates. Imagine a scenario where your app relies on a specific version of library A, which in turn depends on library B. If library B updates with incompatible changes, your app might malfunction. For instance, you can use + allows updates within the major version (2.x.x), but could introduce unexpected changes.

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:+'  // Using dynamic version
}

Using dynamic version numbers can cause unexpected version updates, difficulty resolving version differences, and slower builds caused by Gradle checking for updates. So, define version numbers expicitly instead.

Organization and Readability: A Bird’s-Eye View

Initially, keeping your dependencies organized enhances code readability and maintainability.

Logical grouping: Organize your dependencies logically within the dependencies block. Group them by category (e.g., modules, core libraries, UI libraries) for better readability.

Comments: Add comments to explain the purpose of specific dependencies or dependency groups. This enhances code clarity and understanding for future developers.

dependencies {
    // UI libraries
    implementation 'com.android.support:design:23.1.1'
    implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.13.0'

    // Networking
    implementation 'com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.9.0'
    implementation 'com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.9.3'

    // Testing
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.13.2'
    testImplementation 'androidx.test:ext-junit:1.1.3'
}

Advanced Techniques: Supercharge Your Workflow

Using Gradle version catalogs offers a scalable approach to adding and maintaining dependencies and plugins. This method simplifies dependency and plugin management, especially in projects with multiple modules. Instead of manually specifying dependency names and versions in each module’s build files and having to update them individually for upgrades, a central version catalog can be built. This catalog allows modules to reference dependencies in a type-safe manner, with assistance from Android Studio.

A version catalog is a list of dependencies, represented as dependency coordinates, that a user can pick from when declaring dependencies in a build script.

First, you should create a version catalog file. In your root project’s gradle folder, create a file called libs.versions.toml

TOML(Tom’s Obvious Minimal Language) aims to be a minimal configuration file format that is easy to read due to obvious semantics. TOML is designed to map unambiguously to a hash table. TOML should be easy to parse into data structures in a wide variety of languages.

[versions]
androidGradlePlugin = "7.1.2"
kotlin = "1.7.0"
androidx_core = "1.7.1"
androidx_navigation = "2.4.1"

[libraries]
kotlin_stdlib = { group = "org.jetbrains.kotlin", name = "kotlin-stdlib-jdk8", version = versions.kotlin }
appcompat = { group = "androidx.appcompat", name = "appcompat", version = versions.androidx_appcompat }

[bundles]
navigation = [
  "androidx.navigation:navigation-fragment-ktx:${versions.androidx_navigation}",
  "androidx.navigation:navigation-ui-ktx:${versions.androidx_navigation}"
]

This TOML file contains version specifications (versions), library dependencies (libraries), and dependency bundles (bundles).

• [versions]: versions for Kotlin and AndroidX Navigation.
• [libraries]: dependencies such as the Kotlin standard library and AppCompat, using the versions defined in [versions].
• [bundles]: grouping related dependencies together. In this case, it includes the Navigation bundle, which consists of fragment and UI dependencies.

Then, you can can apply these configurations in your build.gradle.ktsas follow:

plugins {
    id("java-library")
    id("org.jetbrains.kotlin.jvm") version versions.kotlin
}

repositories {
    // Add your repositories here
}

dependencies {
    implementation(libs.kotlin_stdlib)
    implementation(libs.appcompat)
    implementation(libs.navigation) // For individual navigation fragments or UI elements
    implementation(libs.navigation_bundle) // If you want to include the whole navigation bundle
}

// Apply the Android Gradle Plugin version
buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath("com.android.tools.build:gradle:${versions.androidGradlePlugin}")
    }
}

// Android specific configuration
// Add Android plugin if needed
// Apply the specific Android configuration with androidx_core, etc.

Benefits of Version Catalogs:

• Centralized Management: Update dependencies and plugins in one place for all modules to inherit.
• Type Safety: Gradle offers type-safe completion for versions and libraries, reducing errors.
• Improved Readability: Separating versions and dependencies improves build script clarity.

Additional Tips

1. leveraging Gradle’s dependency configurations, such as implementation, compileOnly, and testImplementation is beneficial for handling dependencies effectively in your Android project.
2. Explore dependency resolution management within Gradle. This helps manage transitive dependencies (dependencies of your dependencies) and avoid conflicts.
3. Consider modularizing your project, particularly for larger codebases. Each module can handle its own dependencies, decreasing conflicts and simplifying management.
4. Use tools, like the Android Gradle plugin’s dependency analysis report to identify unused dependencies and potential conflicts. This helps keep your project clean and efficient.

In Conclusion

Well-managed dependencies plays a significant role for efficient Android development. This article considered some key best-practices to manage dependencies in Android development in practice. By following these practices, you can effectively manage dependencies in your Android project, ensuring a clean, maintainable, and well-functioning codebase.