Autoincrement VersionCode with gradle extra properties

Question

I\'m building an Android app with gradle. Until now I used the Manifest file to increase the versionCode, but I would like to read the versionCode from an external file and

Answer 1

I looked at a few options to do this, and ultimately decided it was simpler to just use the current time for the versionCode instead of trying to automatically increment the versionCode and check it into my revision control system.

Add the following to your build.gradle:

/**
 * Use the number of seconds/10 since Jan 1 2016 as the versionCode.
 * This lets us upload a new build at most every 10 seconds for the
 * next 680 years.
 */
def vcode = (int)(((new Date().getTime()/1000) - 1451606400) / 10)

android {
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        versionCode vcode
    }
}

However, if you expect to upload builds beyond year 2696, you may want to use a different solution.