Android manifestPlaceholders from gradle.properties

Question

I want to open an activity on link click (show action chooser with app name). All works fine, action chooser is shown with my app, but only if I do not use property name in manifestPlaceholder, else default browser opens (without any errors).

I have this lines in gradle.properties file:

HOST_NAME_DEV="dev.mysite.com"
HOST_NAME_PROD="mysite.com"

I want to create a manifestPlaceholder like this:

// in manifest
<intent-filter android:autoVerify="true">
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <data
             android:host="${host}"
             android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>

//in build.gradle
productFlavors {
        production {
            manifestPlaceholders = [host: HOST_NAME_PROD]
        }
        develop {
            manifestPlaceholders = [host: HOST_NAME_DEV]
        }
}

And it does not work.

But if I paste string into the manifestPlaceholder all works fine:

productFlavors {
        production {
            manifestPlaceholders = [host: "mysite.com"]
        }
        develop {
            manifestPlaceholders = [host: "dev.mysite.com"]
        }
}

In this way all works fine too:

productFlavors {
        production {
            resValue "string", "host", HOST_NAME_PROD
        }
        develop {
            resValue "string", "host", HOST_NAME_DEV
        }
    }

// and in manifest
android:host="@string/host"

But I want to use manifestPlaceholders.

What I do wrong?

Answer 1

Problem: Data injecting with "(Double Quotes) in your manifest.

Solution: Remove "(Double Quotes) from your values of gradle.properties that it. Just like this:

HOST_NAME_DEV=dev.mysite.com
HOST_NAME_PROD=mysite.com

Answer 2

I had this same issue with the double quotes when using buildConfigField to replace manifestPlaceholders . Annoyingly this did not cause compile issue only found in runtime. Buildconfigfields require the quotes for them to be rendered as a valid Java String.

Before:

properties file

config.AUTH_DOMAIN = "\"myDomain\""

build.gradle

def authDomain = config.AUTH_DOMAIN   

android{
      defaultConfig{
        buildConfigField("String", "AUTH_DOMAIN", "$authDomain")
    
        manifestPlaceholders = [authDomain: authDomain]
    
       }
    }

Manifest: <data android:host=""myDomain"" />

After:

properties file (removed extra the quotes)

config.AUTH_DOMAIN = "myDomain"

build.gradle

def authDomain = config.AUTH_DOMAIN

android{
  defaultConfig{
  //add the quotes or buildConfigField won't compile
    buildConfigField("String", "AUTH_DOMAIN", "\"$authDomain\"")

    manifestPlaceholders = [authDomain: authDomain]

   }
}

Manifest: <data android:host="myDomain" />