<config-file> working on Android builds for anyone?

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

I’m attempting to use the Cordova directive <config-file> to add XML to AndroidManifest.xml during the build, but the entire element gets copied into ./platforms/android/res/xml/config.xml, resulting in a build error. The modification is applied to AndroidManifest.xml as expected, and <config-file> directives work fine on iOS builds.

Here’s the directive from ./config.xml:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<widget ...>
    ...
    <platform name="android">
        ...
        <config-file target="AndroidManifest.xml" parent="/*" mode="merge">
            <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
            <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />
            <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" />
        </config-file>
    </platform>
</widget>

And the error that occurs when using “ionic build android --release”:

Error: /.../platforms/android/gradlew: Command failed with exit code 1 Error output:
/.../platforms/android/res/xml/config.xml:102: AAPT: Error parsing XML: unbound prefix

I’m using Ionic CLI 2.1.17 on an Ionic 2 RC3 project.

1 Like
2

You can fix this by adding the Android XML namespace to your config.xml file.

Add xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" to the end of the opening widget node.

8 Likes
3

this resolved my issue

4

Thanks … it works for me …

5

Just to give a bit of clarity on what files exactly to edit.

What is the problem?

Android isn’t building properly because of the error message saying unbound prefix on the line that uses the android namespace.

What’s an example of the line that uses the namespace?

In my case, it was:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Whatever case it is, the problem can be resolved by adding the following namespace to the topmost XML tag (for the Android platform, it is the <widget> tag):

xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

That will turn your top most XML tag into the following:

<widget id="com.your.app" version="0.0.5" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/ns/widgets" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

Why does it keep erroring after I’ve done this?

It still keeps erroring because you might have edited the platforms/android/app/src/main/res/xml/config.xml, which is an automatically generated file.

This means that whenever you tell ionic to build your android app (using ionic cordova build android), it will re-generate the files, thus removing your changes.

Which file should I edit then, to include these changes?

You should edit the root_project_folder/config.xml file.

Find the <widget> tag on that config.xml file. It should be at the top most part of the config.xml file.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<widget id="com.your.app" version="0.0.5">
    <name>Your App</name>
    <description>Your Application</description>
    <author email="hi@ionicframework" href="http://ionicframework.com/">Your Team
    </author>
    <content src="index.html" />
    <access origin="*" />
    <allow-intent href="http://*/*" />
    <allow-intent href="https://*/*" />
    <allow-intent href="tel:*" />
    <allow-intent href="sms:*" />
    <allow-intent href="mailto:*" />
    <allow-intent href="geo:*" />
    <preference name="ScrollEnabled" value="false" />
    <preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="19" />
    <preference name="BackupWebStorage" value="none" />
    <preference name="SplashMaintainAspectRatio" value="true" />
    <preference name="FadeSplashScreenDuration" value="300" />
    <preference name="SplashShowOnlyFirstTime" value="false" />
    <preference name="SplashScreen" value="screen" />
    <preference name="SplashScreenDelay" value="3000" />
    <platform name="android">
        <allow-intent href="market:*" />
        <icon density="ldpi" src="resources/android/icon/drawable-ldpi-icon.png" />
        <icon density="mdpi" src="resources/android/icon/drawable-mdpi-icon.png" />
        // ... etc

The Fix

Add the namespace to the widget tag in root_project_folder/config.xml.

It should look like this:

<widget id="com.your.app" version="0.0.5" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

Once you’ve done this, running

ionic cordova build android

will allow your auto-generated files to contain your android namespace, thus building successfully.

My ionic info details

Ionic:

   ionic (Ionic CLI)  : 4.10.3
   Ionic Framework    : ionic-angular 3.9.2
   @ionic/app-scripts : 3.2.2

Capacitor:

   capacitor (Capacitor CLI) : 1.0.0-beta.19
   @capacitor/core           : 1.0.0-beta.19

Cordova:

   cordova (Cordova CLI) : 8.1.2 (cordova-lib@8.1.1)
   Cordova Platforms     : android 7.1.4, browser 5.0.4, ios 4.5.5
   Cordova Plugins       : cordova-plugin-ionic-keyboard 2.1.3, cordova-plugin-ionic-webview 3.1.2, (and 19 other plugins)

System:

   ios-deploy : 1.9.4
   ios-sim    : 8.0.0
   NodeJS     : v10.12.0 (/usr/local/Cellar/node/10.12.0/bin/node)
   npm        : 6.9.0
   OS         : macOS Mojave
   Xcode      : Xcode 10.2 Build version 10E125