Android App + Library conflicts with appcompat versions

Question

I am developing an app App with a library (Android Module) Lib . They had no problems when not interacting: after importing the library Android Studio messed up the build.gradle settings and I am not able to recover.

I must target Android 4.4 - and nothing else. The appcompat library is installed and the dependency on it has been added to both the app and the library (I followed this guide: https://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/setup.html )

This is the build.gradle of the module: app (which corresponds to the application App ):

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion "21.1.2"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "it.mydomain.myapp"
        minSdkVersion 19
        targetSdkVersion 19
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
        minifyEnabled false
        proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
     compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
     compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.3'
     compile project(':mylib.mydomain.it')
}

This is the build.gradle of the library:

apply plugin: 'com.android.library'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion "21.1.2"

    defaultConfig {
        minSdkVersion 19
        targetSdkVersion 19
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }

        debug {
            debuggable true
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.3'
    compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:6.5.87'
}

Somehow Android Studio put the wrong API level in the gradle scripts when I started the project (or maybe it was me overlooking a step). After creating the project I had API level 21 both in the app and in the library. I modified the two gradle scripts to use API level 19, performed several clean/rebuild/build and other random attempts. I still get these errors when building the project:

Error:(50, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.

Error:(1) Error retrieving parent for item: No resource found that matches the given name 'android:TextAppearance.Material'.

Error:(1) Error retrieving parent for item: No resource found that matches the given name 'android:TextAppearance.Material.Caption'.

and other 98 similar ones: all related to theme issues.

There are also other messages, referring to values v11 , v14 like:

/.../build/intermediates/exploded-aar/com.android.support/appcompat-v7/21.0.3/res/values-v11/values.xml
Error:(50, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(50, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(50, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(50, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
/.../build/intermediates/exploded-aar/com.android.support/appcompat-v7/21.0.3/res/values-v14/values.xml
Error:(9, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(9, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(9, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
Error:(9, 21) No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'android:actionModeShareDrawable'.
/.../build/intermediates/exploded-aar/com.android.support/appcompat-v7/21.0.3/res/values-v21/values.xml
Error:(1) Error retrieving parent for item: No resource found that matches the given name 'android:TextAppearance.Material'.
Error:(1) Error retrieving parent for item: No resource found that matches the given name 'android:TextAppearance.Material.Body1'.
Error:(1) Error retrieving parent for item: No resource found that matches the given name 'android:TextAppearance.Material.Body2'.

Answer 1

'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.3' requires API 21.

You have to compile your project with API 21. Use:

compileSdkVersion 21