Hi everyone! I have a question about the difference between `debug` and `release` aar I build from m...

# multiplatform

[Vita Sokolova]

Hi everyone! I have a question about the difference between debug and release aar I build from my KMP code. At the moment, I use my KMP project to share data layer between Android and iOS projects, which consume it as an external library.

From KMP side I build two library variants for Android:

androidTarget {
        publishLibraryVariants("release", "debug")
    }

But on Android I have to specify which version to use:

debugImplementation("com.xxx.yyy:shared-android-debug:0.1")
    releaseImplementation("com.xxx.yyy:shared-android:0.1")

I wonder if I benefit from building different variants or should I just build a`release` only.

Can someone share real use cases when such separation can be useful?

[ephemient]

I believe it's supposed to work with

implementation("com.xxx.yyy:shared-android:0.1")

[Vita Sokolova]

Unfortunately, it doesn’t in my case. It can because of a mistake in my setup of course. I have a multi-module KMP project with modules:
• allshared - contains all modules
• analytycs
• common-entities
• …
I have a dependency from allshared in my android app module (I have a DI graph initialization in allshared) and I have dependencies from analytics, where it is required in my feature modules.

As a result, if I don’t declare debugImplementation/releaseImplementation separately I receive error like this:

Duplicate class com.xxx.yyy.analytics.Analytics found in modules analytics-debug-runtime (com.xxx.yyy:analytics-android-debug:0.1) and analytics-release-runtime (com.xxx.yyy:analytics-android:0.1)

[Vita Sokolova]

I ran ./gradlew app:dependencies and it looks like on KMP side my modules depend on -debug artefacts, but my android app uses release versions and they are in conflict.

[louiscad]

Dropping the -android suffix altogether should resolve to the right one:
implementation("com.xxx.yyy:shared:0.1")

On top of that, you can publish only the release variant if there's no debug specific code you need to be present only in debug mode.

[Vita Sokolova]

But if I drop it, the app will use a jar instead of aar, right?

[louiscad]

No

[louiscad]

It will do magic with Gradle metadata

[louiscad]

Even if there's a JVM target, the android one (if any) takes precedence in an android project.

[Vita Sokolova]

Indeed. I see that it works.

[louiscad]

Great!