Android custom build using Ant

Question

These 4 files (build.xml, local.properties, projects.properties, proguard.cfg) are auto-generated when running:

android update project --name TestApp --t

Answer 1

In build.xml itself, it tells you how to do this. See the following comment from the file:

<!--

    ***********************
    ****** IMPORTANT ******
    ***********************
    In all cases you must update the value of version-tag below to read 'custom' instead of an integer,
    in order to avoid having your file be overridden by tools such as "android update project"
-->
<!-- version-tag: 1 -->

Answer 2

Maybe you can check the answer to this question:

Does the ADT plugin automatically create an ant build file?

in the answer there is a paragraph saying...

Alternatively, you can just copy the build.xml template directly from $ANDROID_HOME/tools/lib/build.template then just change the project name.

Modify this file and run the commands to see if it works.

Update

Also check "Customizing the build" of this article: http://www.androidengineer.com/2010/06/using-ant-to-automate-building-android.html

Answer 3

The build.xml as generated by the android tool (at least when using Android SDK r20) contains this piece of code:

<!--
    Import per project custom build rules if present at the root of the project.
    This is the place to put custom intermediary targets such as:
        -pre-build
        -pre-compile
        -post-compile (This is typically used for code obfuscation.
                       Compiled code location: ${out.classes.absolute.dir}
                       If this is not done in place, override ${out.dex.input.absolute.dir})
        -post-package
        -post-build
        -pre-clean
-->
<import file="custom_rules.xml" optional="true" />

So what I do to create additional targets or customize existing targets is to create a custom_rules.xml file with these new targets. Note that in my tests the targets needed to be nested in a <project> tag, so simply copy the first two lines of your generated build.xml to custom_rules.xml, and don't forget about the closing </project> tag in the end. As custom_rules.xml will not be overwritten by android update your changes will be persistent and can be checked into your SCM tool of choice.