[TIMOB-24275] (2_0_X) Hyperloop: Android - Class not found/Cannot read property 'newInstance' of null (Regression)

[sgtcoolguy]

The issue that caused this was our JAR duplication checks in the Hyperloop plugin hook for Android. Specifically we try to avoid a dexer "already added" error that occurs when the same class is included from multiple JAR files. See http://tools.android.com/recent/dealingwithdependenciesinandroidprojects

My first stab at checking for this was to simply check for conflicting jar base filenames. That's a big issue when using multiple AARs since the format of AARs it to contain a "classes.jar" file in them, so they'll all have the same base name.

This fix is to do a little more sophisticated checking, specifically:

• if the file is a classes.jar, assume it came from an AAR and basically just retain it without duplication checks. (we could do better and track the AARs we've expanded to set the whitelist to skip here rather than just skipping all "classes.jar" files)
• if the JAR has the same SHA1 as any other JAR we processed, skip it and log that we're doing so (at debug level)
• if the JAR has a unique SHA1, but has the same base name as another JAR, error out and tell the user to delete one of them or rename one to resolve the conflict.

Please note that we already have very similar code in Titanium SDK's android CLI here: https://github.com/appcelerator/titanium_mobile/blob/master/android/cli/commands/_build.js#L1619

That code will check for conflicting JARs inside Titanium modules. The long-term solution is to re-use the same code if possible, and do the check before we run through dexer (and after hyperloop/plugins/hooks may have modified the list of JARs to dev)

[hansemannn]

We are currently updating the support library, so we will likely soon need a different way to handle those special cases or remind us to update this line every time we update the support library - which should become more frequent than it used to be.

[janvennemann]

Good point. In my current PR tidev/titanium-sdk#8858 the libraries are now included with a version number, e.g. android-support-v4-23.4.0.jar. I'll change that back to omit the version number to avoid more unnecessary changes for now. We are also evaluating to allow users to supply their own version of the Android support library, i added a note in TIMOB-24446 so we won't forget about this special case in Hyperloop.

[hansemannn]

If we do, we should still have some kind of registry to track different versions. Or find a solution that's more flexible, although that's easier said than done.

[hansemannn]

Reminder to myself: Do a master "forwardport" 😁 for consistency.

[janvennemann]

CR looks good, approved! I also created TIMOB-24467 to track your suggested long term solution for the duplicate .jar checking in both Hyperloop and TiSDK

[janvennemann]

FT also passed!