Android - change flavor version name based on build type

Question

I want to change version name for app flavors but only if it\'s a debug build.

(e.g. debug builds will have versions like 1.0.1 D (DEBUG) 555 or 1.0.1 P (DEBUG) 555

Answer 1

For those wondering to use this using Kotlin DSL. At first try, it might not be allowing us to assign a new value to the version name.

The image above shown there's no setter for versionName for ProductFlavor class.

Attempt 1 (cast to ProductFlavorImpl):

applicationVariants.forEach { variant ->
  if (variant.buildType.name != "release") {
    variant.mergedFlavor.let {
      it as ProductFlavorImpl
      it.versionName = "sampingan-${defaultConfig.versionName}"
    }
  }
}

it as ProductFlavorImpl still doesn't work, due to MergedFlavor cannot be cast ProductFlavorImpl and throw this error:

com.android.builder.core.MergedFlavor cannot be cast to com.android.build.gradle.internal.api.dsl.model.ProductFlavorImpl

Attempt 2 (casting to MergedFlavor) instead:

  //
  variant.mergedFlavor.let {
    it as com.android.builder.core.MergedFlavor
  }
  // 

After trial & error, it looks like we were unable to directly change the versionName with MergedFlavor, instead another error logs shown below:

versionName cannot be set on a mergedFlavor directly.
versionNameOverride can instead be set for variant outputs using the following syntax:
android {
    applicationVariants.all { variant ->
        variant.outputs.each { output ->
            output.versionNameOverride = "1.0.0"
        }
    }
}

Attempt 3 (using ApplicationVariant object) instead:

So let's change our implementation to be like this

    applicationVariants.all(object : Action {
        override fun execute(variant: com.android.build.gradle.api.ApplicationVariant) {
            println("variant: ${variant}")
            variant.outputs.all(object : Action {
                override fun execute(output: com.android.build.gradle.api.BaseVariantOutput) {

                    if (variant.buildType.name != "release") {
                    (output as com.android.build.gradle.internal.api.ApkVariantOutputImpl)
                            .versionNameOverride = "prefix-${variant.versionName}"
                    }
                }
            })
        }
    })

This whole approach, inspired by @david-mihola answer. He explained that groovy has its own magic here.

And if you want to change the APK name for each different buildTypes or productFlavors you can go to @david-mihola answer here.