当我添加Apache POI库时，获取“：app：mergeDebugResources FAILED”

Question

This problem has given me headache for many hours! Everytime I add the Apache POI 3.14 lib into Android Studio, I get the same error:

Error:Execution failed for task ':app:mergeDebugResources'.
> -1

I can't run my app and I have tried to both clean and rebuild the project without any succses at all.

This is the file I downloaded Binary Distribution (zip): https://poi.apache.org/download.html

and then I unpacked it, and added the jar file poi-3.14-20160307.jar as a lib in Android Studio!

I want to use this lib to read XLS/XLSX files in Android.

This is what is shown in the gradle console:

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 2.206 secs
Executing tasks: [:app:clean, :app:generateDebugSources, :app:generateDebugAndroidTestSources, :app:mockableAndroidJar, :app:prepareDebugUnitTestDependencies, :app:assembleDebug]

Configuration on demand is an incubating feature.
Incremental java compilation is an incubating feature.
:app:clean
:app:preBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:preDebugBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:checkDebugManifest
:app:preReleaseBuild UP-TO-DATE
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportAnimatedVectorDrawable2411Library
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportAppcompatV72411Library
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportSupportV42411Library
:app:prepareComAndroidSupportSupportVectorDrawable2411Library
:app:prepareDebugDependencies
:app:compileDebugAidl
:app:compileDebugRenderscript
:app:generateDebugBuildConfig
:app:mergeDebugShaders
:app:compileDebugShaders
:app:generateDebugAssets
:app:mergeDebugAssets
:app:generateDebugResValues UP-TO-DATE
:app:generateDebugResources
:app:mergeDebugResources FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:mergeDebugResources'.
> -1

Answer 1

Please note that there are a number of problems that you might run into when using Apache POI on Android. Usually Android applications fail to build because there are too many methods or duplicate classes in XmlBeans or other build-related problems.

There are currently two projects which try to solve most of the problems for you:

1. https://github.com/andruhon/android5xlsx
2. https://github.com/centic9/poi-on-android/ (mainted by me)

The first one is currently based on POI 3.12, whereas the second can be re-compiled with newer versions of POI more easily.