[Android] VERSION_CODE generation

[Joe Bowser <bo...@gmail.com>]

I just fixed CB-9080 by removing the fix for CB-8834, since I consider
VERSION_DOWNGRADE to be easily worked around while not launching the
application on older devices is an unacceptable fail state.

The thing is why is VERSION_DOWNGRADE happening in the first place, and why
are we generating the versionCode?  This code should be linear every time
you actually release something to the play store, and otherwise should stay
the same.  I know there was a bunch of messing around with it to sync it to
whatever Apple does, but I don't know if that's the right approach here.

See this form more info on versioning:
http://developer.android.com/tools/publishing/versioning.html

Can anyone explain more about why we're generating the versionCode the way
we are right now?

Re: [Android] VERSION_CODE generation

[Andrew Grieve <ag...@chromium.org>]

I can shed some light.

The code for it is here:
https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/blob/master/bin/templates/project/build.gradle#L178

There are two times we fiddle with it:
1 - When building multiple architectures (cough crosswalk cough)
2 - When a minSdkVersion is set.

Play store requires that each architecture-dependent .apk has a unique
versionCode, so that's why we do that.
Play store also requires that when using multiple apks, apks with a higher
minSdkVersion have higher versionCodes.

https://github.com/crosswalk-project/cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview
outlines instructions for building multiple apks:

Install xwalk and run:
cordova build --release

Uninstall xwalk and run:
cordova build --release -- --minSdkVersion=21

This gives three apks where versionCode is bigger in the right cases. The
reason to not want xwalk for 21 is that it has an updating webview anyways.

So, where I was seeing downgrade happen a lot was when going back and forth
between xwalk and system webview.

Sad that adb can't just deal with it on older devices :S. I think it's fine
to just remove the -d flag as you've done.


On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Joe Bowser <bo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I just fixed CB-9080 by removing the fix for CB-8834, since I consider
> VERSION_DOWNGRADE to be easily worked around while not launching the
> application on older devices is an unacceptable fail state.
>
> The thing is why is VERSION_DOWNGRADE happening in the first place, and why
> are we generating the versionCode?  This code should be linear every time
> you actually release something to the play store, and otherwise should stay
> the same.  I know there was a bunch of messing around with it to sync it to
> whatever Apple does, but I don't know if that's the right approach here.
>
> See this form more info on versioning:
> http://developer.android.com/tools/publishing/versioning.html
>
> Can anyone explain more about why we're generating the versionCode the way
> we are right now?
>