How to manage different support library versions for 3rd party deps with gradle?

Question

I have a bunch of third party libs that I include in my base application. I cannot control the support library those 3rd party modules include. This makes it hard to have the same version of the android support library in my application.

I know using gradle when I can exclude certain libraries from each dependency:

compile('com.test:lib1:1.0.0') {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support'
}

However there are a ton of support libraries and excluding them all for each one of my 3rd party libraries seems like overkill.

Is there a better way?

Reading this blog post: https://www.devsbedevin.net/android-understanding-gradle-dependencies-and-resolving-conflicts/

It suggests:

configurations.all {
  resolutionStrategy {
    preferProjectModules()
  }
}

However when using that I still get a warning in Android Studio in my gradle file that there are multiple versions of the support library detected.

What do I do if my dependencies depend on different versions of the support library? In either case above I would be forcing the 3rd party libraries to use a specific version of the support library that they were not build with. Which version am I supposed to use? Latest support library? Min support library of all 3rd party dependencies?

Here is a minimal gradle file example showing pulling in 3rd party dependencies that each depend on their own version of the support library.

android {
    compileSdkVersion 26
    buildToolsVersion '26.0.2'

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.example.app"
        minSdkVersion 17
        targetSdkVersion 25
    }
}

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy {
        preferProjectModules()
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v13:26.0.0'
    compile 'com.test:lib1:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.0.0
    compile 'com.test:lib2:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.2.0
    compile 'com.test:lib3:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.4.0
    compile 'com.test:lib4:1.0' // depends on support-v13:26.0.0
}

Android studio gives the following warning:

Answer 1

This is certainly possible. In your projects build.gradle file (the top level build.gradle file) add the following code block:

ext {
    supportlib_version = '26.1.0'
    gps_version = '11.2.0'
}

//Ensure that all dependencies use the same version of the Android Support library
subprojects {
    project.configurations.all {
        resolutionStrategy.eachDependency { details ->
            if (details.requested.group == 'com.android.support'
                    && !details.requested.name.contains('multidex')) {
                details.useVersion "$supportlib_version"
            }
            if (details.requested.group == 'com.google.android.gms'
                    && !details.requested.name.contains('multidex')) {
                details.useVersion "$gps_version"
            }
        }
    }
}

The following code ensures that the 'com.android.support' dependency version will be equal to $supportlib_version for all dependencies. The same for the 'com.google.android.gms' framework.

Make sure that in your module's build.gradle file you also use these versions for your dependencies. E.g.:

compile "com.android.support:support-v4:$supportlib_version"

Read more about forcing a certain dependency version in the Official Gradle documentation.

Update Google has decoupled library versions. Therefore, forcing a specific version above 15.0.0 may not work. Instead, you can allow a limited range of versions. The example below allows any version higher than 15.0.0 but lower than 16.

gps_version = '[15.0.0, 16.0.0)'

Answer 2

First case: You have compatible libs wich already updated their own internal libs, No problem here.

Second case: You have libs in your project which have higher version than other libs contained internal to other libs, and these libs can be updated to new version with no such problem, Also No problem here.

Worst case: You have libs in your project which have higher version than other libs contained internal to other libs, and these libs doesn't have a new version that has already updated there internal libs, suggested solutions for that:

1. Download that library and include it to your app as project implementation project(':library') and update their internal libs.
2. OR Use other library instead.

---

Don't forget to use ./gradlew app:dependencies to check your dependencies.

Also I believe should be there someway to do that automatically.

Answer 3

You need to specify dependency, with your desired version, that is causing the conflict before the libs that need it. If you do that these lib will use your specified dependency version.

Example with libs (from warning message) from your screenshot

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v13:26.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:support-compat:26.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:animated-vector-drawable:26.0.0'
    compile 'com.test:lib1:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.0.0
    compile 'com.test:lib2:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.2.0
    compile 'com.test:lib3:1.0' // depends on support-v13:25.4.0
    compile 'com.test:lib4:1.0' // depends on support-v13:26.0.0
}

Continue adding dependencies (that show up in the warning from your screenshot) until there is no longer any warning message about different library versions.

Answer 4

Make the targetsdkversion 26 and also in your gradle make changes to 26 or u can change your compilesdk version to 25 and change your relevant dependecies to 25