Including Android keystore properties file in Gradle, only in release variant

Question

I have been following this guide to allow loading the secrets for my Android keystore properties from a dedicated file.

Basically, the build.gradle file contains:

def keystorePropertiesFile = rootProject.file("testandroidpacketcapture/keystore.properties");
def keystoreProperties = new Properties()
keystoreProperties.load(new FileInputStream(keystorePropertiesFile))

android {
    // ...

    signingConfigs {
        debug {
            storeFile file('debug.keystore')
            storePassword 'android'
            keyAlias 'androiddebugkey'
            keyPassword 'android'
        }
        release {
            storeFile file(keystoreProperties['storeFile'])
            storePassword keystoreProperties['storePassword']
            keyAlias keystoreProperties['keyAlias']
            keyPassword keystoreProperties['keyPassword']
        }
    }

This works as long as the keystore.properties file exists. But for debug builds, or for developers who do not have access to the keystore, I would like to make this loading of the properties optional.

How could I define that variable only depending on whether that file is available?

I could load the contents only if the file exists() , but then the file() call in storeFile will still fail, because it is not defined.

Answer 1

You can use the getProperty(key, default) method to define a default value if it is not present.

So, above, use:

def keystorePropertiesFile = rootProject.file("testandroidpacketcapture/keystore.properties");
def keystoreProperties = new Properties()
if (keystorePropertiesFile.exists()) {
    keystoreProperties.load(new FileInputStream(keystorePropertiesFile))
}

And below, use:

release {
  storeFile file(keystoreProperties.getProperty('storeFile', 'release.keystore'))
  storePassword keystoreProperties.getProperty('storePassword')
  keyAlias keystoreProperties.getProperty('keyAlias')
  keyPassword keystoreProperties.getProperty('keyPassword')
}

This will pass the default release.keystore to the property, which does not matter if you're not actually building a release APK.