How to parse the AndroidManifest.xml file inside an .apk package

Question

This file appears to be in a binary XML format. What is this format and how can it be parsed programmatically (as opposed to using the aapt dump tool in the SDK)?

Answer 1

With the latest SDK-Tools, you can now use a tool called the apkanalyzer to print out the AndroidManifest.xml of an APK (as well as other parts, such as resources).

[android sdk]/tools/bin/apkanalyzer manifest print [app.apk]

apkanalyzer