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

To increment versionCode only in release version do it:

android {
    compileSdkVersion 21
    buildToolsVersion "21.1.2"

    def versionPropsFile = file('version.properties')
    def code = 1;
    if (versionPropsFile.canRead()) {
        def Properties versionProps = new Properties()

        versionProps.load(new FileInputStream(versionPropsFile))
        List runTasks = gradle.startParameter.getTaskNames();
        def value = 0
        for (String item : runTasks)
        if ( item.contains("assembleRelease")) {
            value = 1;
        }
        code = Integer.parseInt(versionProps['VERSION_CODE']).intValue() + value
        versionProps['VERSION_CODE']=code.toString()
        versionProps.store(versionPropsFile.newWriter(), null)
    }
    else {
        throw new GradleException("Could not read version.properties!")
    }

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.pack"
        minSdkVersion 14
        targetSdkVersion 21
        versionName "1.0."+ code
        versionCode code
    }

expects an existing c://YourProject/app/version.properties file, which you would create by hand before the first build to have VERSION_CODE=8

File version.properties:

VERSION_CODE=8