2BAB / Polyfill

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🚧 It's currently under incubating...

Polyfill is an artifact repository to assist writing Gradle Plugins for Android build system. It provides addtional artifacts in similar API styles of AGP Artifacts ones for third party plugin developers.

If you are not familiar with new Artifact/Variant API of AGP (since 7.0), please check the tutorial Gradle and AGP build APIs - MAD Skills by @AndroidDevelopers. More information can be found on "Why Polyfill" section below.

Quick Start

1. Add Polyfill to dependencies of your Plugin project (standalone plugin project or buildSrc):

dependencies {
    compileOnly("com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.1.2")
    implementation("me.2bab:polyfill:0.6.2")  <--
}

2. Apply the Polyfill plugin to your plugin before everything:

import org.gradle.kotlin.dsl.apply

class TestPlugin : Plugin<Project> {
    override fun apply(project: Project) {
        project.apply(plugin = "me.2bab.polyfill")  <--
        ...
    }
}    

3. Config your TaskProvider with the help of Polyfill's variant.artifactsPolyfill.*, which has similar API style with variant.artifacts one of AGP:

val androidExtension = project.extensions.getByType(ApplicationAndroidComponentsExtension::class.java)
androidExtension.onVariants { variant ->

    // get()/getAll()
    val printManifestTask = project.tasks.register<PreUpdateManifestsTask>(
        "getAllInputManifestsFor${variant.name.capitalize()}"
    ) {
        beforeMergeInputs.set(
            variant.artifactsPolyfill.getAll(PolyfilledMultipleArtifact.ALL_MANIFESTS)  <--
        )
    }
    ...

    // use()
    val preHookManifestTask1 = project.tasks.register<PreUpdateManifestsTask>(
        "preUpdate${variant.name.capitalize()}Manifest1"
    )
    variant.artifactsPolyfill.use(  <--
        taskProvider = preHookManifestTask1,
        wiredWith = TestPlugin.PreUpdateManifestsTask::beforeMergeInputs,
        toInPlaceUpdate = PolyfilledMultipleArtifact.ALL_MANIFESTS
    )
}

...

abstract class PreUpdateManifestsTask : DefaultTask() {
    @get:InputFiles
    abstract val beforeMergeInputs: ListProperty<RegularFile>  <--

    @TaskAction
    fun beforeMerge() {
        beforeMergeInputs.get().let { files -> ...}
    }
}

All supported Artifacts are listed below:

4. In addition, if aforementioned API sets are not satisfied for your requirement, a public data pipeline mechanism with a bunch of variant tools that provided by Polyfill are opening to customized Artifacts registry.（PR is welcome as well!)

project.extensions.getByType<PolyfillExtension>()
    .registerPincerTaskConfig(DUMMY_SINGLE_ARTIFACT, DummySingleArtifactImpl::class)

Check more in ./test-plugin and ./polyfill/src/functionalTest.

Why Polyfill?

As its name suggests, the lib is a middle-ware between AGP (Android Gradle Plugin) and 3rd Gradle Plugin based on AGP context. For example, the ScratchPaper is a plugin to add an overlay to your app icons which based on AGP, it consumes:

1. SDK Locations / BuildToolInfo instance (to run aapt2 commands)
2. All input resource directories (to query the source of launcher icons)
3. Merged AndroidManifest.xml (to get the resolved icon name)

By the time I created ScratchPaper, AGP does not provide any public API for above 3 items, I had to deal them with a few hacky hooks. In 2018, I started to consider if we can make a Polyfill layer for 3rd Android Gradle Plugin developers, and finally released the first version in 2020 as you can see here. The name "Polyfill" comes from the FrontEnd tech-stack, which makes the JS code compatible with old/odd browser APIs.

Since AGP 7.0.0, the AGP team provides a new public API set called "Variant/Artifact API". You can check all latest AGP exported Artifacts here: SingleArtifact, MultipleArtifact (On "Known Direct Subclasses" section). At this early stage AGP only provides less than 10 artifacts' API, AGP released 2-3 minor versions per year, developers need to stay tuned for new Artifacts releasing. Back to the example, only item 3 is provided by the new Artifacts API in public. For rest two items you may need to handle(hack) by yourself. to fulfill thoes requirements that are not satisfied by new Artifacts so far, probably we can:

1. Raise requests to corresponding issue tracker thread of AGP.
2. In the meantime, create a similar data pipeline to populate our hooks as what artifacts.use()/get()/getAll() looks like, it's a temporary workaround and easy to migrate to official Artifacts API once available.

That's the reason why I created Polyfill and wish one day we can 100% migrate to Artifacts API. Find more Variant/Artifact API news from links below:

• gradle-recipes: An official repo for Variant/Artifact API showcases.
• New APIs in the Android Gradle Plugin: A brief orientation for new Variant/Artifact API.
• Extend the Android Gradle plugin: The official doc of Variant/Artifact API that was released in Oct 2021.

Compatible Specification

Polyfill is only supported & tested on latest 2 Minor versions of Android Gradle Plugin.

Changelog can be found from Github Releases.

(The project currently compiles with the latest version of AGP 7.0, and compiles and tests against the both AGP 7.0 and 7.1 on CI.)

Git Commit Check

Check this link to make sure everyone will make a meaningful commit message.

So far we haven't added any hook tool, but follow the regex below:

(chore|feat|docs|fix|refactor|style|test|hack|release)(:)( )(.{0,80})

License

Copyright 2018-2022 2BAB

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.