Building a gradle Android app under NixOS

Question

I have existing Android apps, that I would like to continue building after I switched to NixOS.

I followed several instructions that are basically allways based on what is described in the Nixpkgs manual: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/doc/languages-frameworks/android.section.md

The problem I have is: when I build my own environment with something like this:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

let
  androidComposition = androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
    toolsVersion = "25.2.5";
    platformToolsVersion = "27.0.1";
    buildToolsVersions = [ "27.0.3" ];
    includeEmulator = false;
    emulatorVersion = "27.2.0";
    platformVersions = [ "24" ];
    includeSources = false;
    includeDocs = false;
    includeSystemImages = false;
    systemImageTypes = [ "default" ];
    abiVersions = [ "armeabi-v7a" ];
    lldbVersions = [ "2.0.2558144" ];
    cmakeVersions = [ "3.6.4111459" ];
    includeNDK = false;
    ndkVersion = "16.1.4479499";
    useGoogleAPIs = false;
    useGoogleTVAddOns = false;
    includeExtras = [
      "extras;google;gcm"
    ];
  };
in
androidComposition.androidsdk

Then there is no environment variable ANDROID_HOME defined and calling gradlew of my project will fail complaining that. If I try to find some place where I could manually direct ANDROID_HOME to, then I fail because the gradle build will complain I didn't accept the license agreement of the SDK. (And I also cannot accept the license because I would have to do this in the read-only nix store.)

I also tried to build the complete app using Nix with something like this:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.buildApp {
  name = "Tove";
  src = ./tove;
  release = true;

  keyStore = ./tove/release.keystore;
  keyAlias = "ReleaseKey";
  keyStorePassword = "XXXXXXXX";
  keyAliasPassword = "XXXXXXXX";

  platformVersions = [ "28" ];

  includeNDK = false;
}

But it seems to me, that this only supports Ant based builds. But I cannot change the complete build environment to Ant, because my colleagues would complain then. The error I get in that case is:

these derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/1pnd3zra0p6q2w4nij8mp49b1jr6g0p2-Tove.drv
building '/nix/store/1pnd3zra0p6q2w4nij8mp49b1jr6g0p2-Tove.drv'...
unpacking sources
unpacking source archive /nix/store/l1lphdp98cxfhq5dahr63ipjrz9qbn6l-tove
source root is tove
patching sources
configuring
no configure script, doing nothing
building
Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed
builder for '/nix/store/1pnd3zra0p6q2w4nij8mp49b1jr6g0p2-Tove.drv' failed with exit code 1
error: build of '/nix/store/1pnd3zra0p6q2w4nij8mp49b1jr6g0p2-Tove.drv' failed

How do I get an environment where I can build Android Apps using gradle from within NixOS? Is there any help or tutorials available?

You mentioned about licenses. Was is related to emulators? Maybe this will help You some - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38096225/automatically-accept-all-sdk-licences — deadfish, Jun 05 '19 at 13:35
@deadfish thanks for the link, but unfortunately it doesn't work (or I'm doing it wrong). It would try to accept the license by writing a file to a read only location in the file system (the nix store). — Matthias Wimmer, Jun 05 '19 at 13:38

Building a gradle Android app under NixOS

0 Answers0