How to get Category for each App on device on Android?

Question

I\'ve got an Android app which scans for all Apps installed on the device and then reports this to a server (it\'s an MDM agent). Any suggestions on how to get the Category

Answer 1

I made a Kotlin solution based on the answer from @Ankit Kumar Singh.
This solution maps the category to an enum, in case you want to do other things than just show it.

import kotlinx.coroutines.experimental.android.UI
import kotlinx.coroutines.experimental.launch
import net.nrask.appsanywhere.deviceSettings.installedApps.database.AppCategory
import org.jsoup.Jsoup

object GetAppCategoryService {
    private const val APP_URL = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id="
    private const val CAT_SIZE = 9
    private const val CATEGORY_STRING = "category/"
    private const val CATEGORY_GAME_STRING = "GAME_" // All games start with this prefix
    private const val DEFAULT_VALUE = "OTHERS"

    fun fetchCategory(packageName: String, onResult: (AppCategory) -> Unit) {
        val url = "$APP_URL$packageName&hl=en" //https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.example.app&hl=en
        val categoryRaw = parseAndExtractCategory(url)

        launch(UI) {
            onResult(AppCategory.fromCategoryName(categoryRaw ?: DEFAULT_VALUE))
        }
    }

    private fun parseAndExtractCategory(url: String): String? {
        return try {
            val text = Jsoup.connect(url).get()?.select("a[itemprop=genre]") ?: return null
            val href = text.attr("abs:href")

            if (href != null && href.length > 4 && href.contains(CATEGORY_STRING)) {
                getCategoryTypeByHref(href)
            } else {
                null
            }
        } catch (e: kotlin.Exception) {
            //TODO handle error
            null
        }
    }

    private fun getCategoryTypeByHref(href: String): String? {
        val appCategoryType = href.substring(href.indexOf(CATEGORY_STRING) + CAT_SIZE, href.length)

        return if (appCategoryType.contains(CATEGORY_GAME_STRING)) {
            AppCategory.GENERAL_GAMES_CATEGORY_NAME
        } else appCategoryType
    }
}

And here is the enum with all the possible values at of this moment in time:

// Int value is equal to the category's name's hashvalue - For easy parsing
enum class AppCategory(val rawValue: Int) {
    OTHER(0),
    ART_AND_DESIGN(1798113474),
    AUTO_AND_VEHICLES(-201031457),
    BEAUTY(1955267708),
    BOOKS_AND_REFERENCE(652448174),
    BUSINESS(-364204096),
    COMICS(1993477496),
    COMMUNICATION(2080958390),
    DATING(2009386219),
    EDUCATION(-1799129208),
    ENTERTAINMENT(-678717592),
    EVENTS(2056967449),
    FINANCE(-135275590),
    FOOD_AND_DRINK(-267698865),
    HEALTH_AND_FITNESS(704829917),
    HOUSE_AND_HOME(-908401466),
    LIBRARIES_AND_DEMO(-1893543311),
    LIFESTYLE(-1796047851),
    MAPS_AND_NAVIGATION(1381037124),
    MEDICAL(1658758769),
    MUSIC_AND_AUDIO(702385524),
    NEWS_AND_MAGAZINES(1916976715),
    PARENTING(561964760),
    PERSONALIZATION(1779216900),
    PHOTOGRAPHY(-470332035),
    PRODUCTIVITY(-953829166),
    SHOPPING(438165864),
    SOCIAL(-1843721363),
    SPORTS(-1842431105),
    TOOLS(80007611),
    TRAVEL_AND_LOCAL(856995806),
    VIDEO_PLAYERS(289768878),
    WEATHER(1941423060),
    GAMES("GAMES".hashCode());


    companion object {
        private val map = AppCategory.values().associateBy(AppCategory::rawValue)
        const val GENERAL_GAMES_CATEGORY_NAME = "GAMES"

        fun fromCategoryName(name: String): AppCategory {
            return map[name.hashCode()] ?: AppCategory.OTHER
        }
    }
}