How can I force Proguard to keep my .xml resource file?

Question

I am succesfully using proguard for my Android apps.

However, with one app I am having trouble.

This app uses a java library that has a .xml file that is stored in the package.

InputStream istream = Library.class.getResourceAsStream("resource.xml");

This library works great when proguard is disabled. However, running proguard, it seems that the xml file is just completely stripped away.

Relevant proguard.cfg

-optimizationpasses 5
-dontusemixedcaseclassnames
-dontskipnonpubliclibraryclasses
-dontpreverify
#-dontobfuscate
#-repackageclasses '' //THIS IS DISABLED
-keepattributes *Annotation*
-keepattributes Signature
-verbose
-dontwarn roboguice.activity.RoboMapActivity
-optimizations !code/simplification/arithmetic,!field/*,!class/merging/*

Any ideas on how to force keep this xml file?

Answer 1

First of all, It turned out that using ant and my build.xml script didn't process the .xml resource file at all. You'll need to manually add a copy action to the build.xml for the resource files to be copied to the output dir.

Still, having solved that, proguard messed up my work. Solution was:

 -keeppackagenames the.package.where.the.file.is.kept

This made sure that the .xml file could be found by calling the Library.class.getResource.

Answer 2

You shoud add a new file keep.xml under res/raw.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:keep="@layout/l_used*_c,@layout/l_used_a,@layout/l_used_b*"
    tools:discard="@layout/unused2" />

In tools:keep, you list the layouts you want to keep. You can even keep specefic drawables if you use reflection in your code to get your drawable

tools:keep="@drawable/ico_android_home_infosperso"

I prefer to add tools:shrinkMode="strict" so that i make sur no resource is eliminated unless it is not used for sure. You may want to have a look at this link Shrink your code. Don't Forget to add these lines to your proguard rules:

-keepattributes InnerClasses -keep class **.R -keep class **.R$* { <fields>; }

Answer 3

You should store files in the appropriate /res/xml, /res/assets, or /res/raw folder and access them through the resource management system or the asset manager correspondingly. You can read more about providing resources in Android Developer's Guide.