Get Android apk file VersionName or VersionCode WITHOUT installing apk

Question

How can I get programmatically get the version code or version name of my apk from the AndroidManifest xml file after downloading it and without installing it    lt manifest xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      package  xxx xx xxx      android versionCode  1      android versionName  1 1   gt    For example I want to check if a new version is uploaded on my IIS service  after install it on device  if it is not a new version I don t want to install it

User · Answer

For the upgrade scenario specifically an alternative approach might be to have a web service that delivers the current version number and check that instead of downloading the entire apk just to check its version. It would save some bandwidth, be a little more performant (much faster to download than an apk if the whole apk isn't needed most of the time) and much simpler to implement.

In the simplest form you could have a simple text file on your server... http://some-place.com/current-app-version.txt

Inside of that text file have something like

3.1.4

and then download that file and check against the currently installed version.

Building a more advanced solution to that would be to implement a proper web service and have an api call at launch which could return some json, i.e. http://api.some-place.com/versionCheck:

{
    "current_version": "3.1.4"
}

User · Answer

I can now successfully retrieve the version of an APK file from its binary XML data   This topic is where I got the key to my answer  I also added my version of Ribo s code   How to parse the AndroidManifest xml file inside an  apk package  Additionally  here s the XML parsing code I wrote  specifically to fetch the version   XML Parsing         Verifies at Conductor APK path if package version if newer          return True if package found is newer  false otherwise     public static boolean checkIsNewVersion String conductorApkPath         boolean newVersionExists   false          Decompress found APK s Manifest XML        Source  https   stackoverflow com questions 2097813 how-to-parse-the-androidmanifest-xml-file-inside-an-apk-package 4761689 4761689     try            if   new File conductorApkPath  exists                    JarFile jf   new JarFile conductorApkPath               InputStream is   jf getInputStream jf getEntry  AndroidManifest xml                 byte   xml   new byte is available                 int br   is read xml                  Tree tr   TrunkFactory newTree                String xmlResult   SystemPackageTools decompressXML xml                 prt  XML n  tr list                  if   xmlResult isEmpty                       InputStream in   new ByteArrayInputStream xmlResult getBytes                         Source  http   developer android com training basics network-ops xml html                 XmlPullParser parser   Xml newPullParser                    parser setFeature XmlPullParser FEATURE PROCESS NAMESPACES  false                    parser setInput in  null                   parser nextTag                     String name   parser getName                    if  name equalsIgnoreCase  Manifest                           String pakVersion   parser getAttributeValue null   versionName                                  NOTE  This is specific to my project  Replace with whatever is relevant on your side to fetch your project s version                     String curVersion   SharedData getPlayerVersion                         int isNewer   SystemPackageTools compareVersions pakVersion  curVersion                         newVersionExists    isNewer    1                                                      catch  Exception ex            android util Log e TAG   getIntents  ex    ex           ex printStackTrace               return newVersionExists      Version Comparison  seen as SystemPackageTools compareVersions in previous snippet  NOTE  This code is inspired from the following topic   Efficient way to compare version strings in Java         Compare 2 version strings and tell if the first is higher  equal or lower    Source  https   stackoverflow com questions 6701948 efficient-way-to-compare-version-strings-in-java         param ver1 Reference version     param ver2 Comparison version         return 1 if ver1 is higher  0 if equal  -1 if ver1 is lower     public static final int compareVersions String ver1  String ver2         String   vals1   ver1 split             String   vals2   ver2 split             int i 0      while i lt vals1 length amp  amp i lt vals2 length amp  amp vals1 i  equals vals2 i            i               if  i lt vals1 length amp  amp i lt vals2 length            int diff   Integer valueOf vals1 i   compareTo Integer valueOf vals2 i             return diff lt 0 -1 diff  0 0 1             return vals1 length lt vals2 length -1 vals1 length  vals2 length 0 1      I hope this helps

User · Answer

aapt dump badging test apk   grep  VersionName    sed -e  s   versionName      -e  s           This answers the question by returning only the version number as a result  However        The goal as previously stated should be to find out if the apk on the server is newer than the one installed BEFORE attempting to download or install it  The easiest way to do this is include the version number in the filename of the apk hosted on the server eg myapp 1 01 apk  You will need to establish the name and version number of the apps already installed  if it is installed  in order to make the comparison  You will need a rooted device or a means of installing the aapt binary and busybox if they are not already included in the rom   This script will get the list of apps from your server and compare with any installed apps  The result is a list flagged for upgrade installation     system bin sh SERVER LIST   wget -qO-  http   demo server com apk     grep  href    grep    apk    sed  s   href                        sed  s          grep -v        sed -E  s       x g    sed -e  s x20   g  -e  s       g   LOCAL LIST   for APP in   pm list packages -f   sed -e  s package     -e  s          sort -u   do                 INFO   echo -n   aapt dump badging  APP   grep -e  package  name   -e  application  label     2 gt  dev null                  PACKAGE   echo  INFO   sed  s   package  name        sed  s                           LABEL   echo  INFO   sed  s   application  label        sed  s           if   -z   LABEL     then LABEL   PACKAGE   fi                  VERSION   echo  INFO   sed -e  s   versionName      -e  s                           NAME  LABEL    VERSION  apk   echo   NAME                   done   OFS  IFS  IFS    t n  for REMOTE in  SERVER LIST  do     INSTALLED 0     REMOTE NAME   echo  REMOTE   sed  s          REMOTE VER   echo  REMOTE   sed  s          g    sed  s   0-9    g       for LOCAL in  LOCAL LIST  do         LOCAL NAME   echo  LOCAL   sed  s          LOCAL VER   echo  LOCAL   sed  s          g    sed  s   0-9    g           if     REMOTE NAME       LOCAL NAME     then INSTALLED 1  fi         if     REMOTE NAME       LOCAL NAME     amp  amp        REMOTE VER       LOCAL VER     then echo remote  REMOTE ver  REMOTE VER local  LOCAL ver  LOCAL VER  fi     done     if     INSTALLED      0     then echo   REMOTE   fi done IFS  OFS   As somebody asked how to do it without using aapt  It is also possible to extract apk info with apktool and a bit of scripting  This way is slower and not simple in android but will work on windows mac or linux as long as you have working apktool setup      bin sh APK  path to your apk TMPDIR  tmp apktool rm -f -R  TMPDIR apktool d -q -f -s --force-manifest -o  TMPDIR  APK APK   basename  APK  VERSION   cat  TMPDIR apktool yml   grep  versionName    sed -e  s versionName       LABEL   cat  TMPDIR res values strings xml   grep  string name  title     sed -e  s     gt     -e  s  lt        rm -f -R  TMPDIR echo   LABEL    echo  V  apk   Also consider a drop folder on your server  Upload apks to it and a cron task renames and moves them to your update folder      bin sh   Drop Folder script for renaming APKs   Read apk file from SRC folder and move it to TGT folder while changing filename to APKLABEL APKVERSION apk   If an existing version of the APK exists in the target folder then script will remove it   Define METHOD as  aapt  or  apktool  depending upon what is available on server     Variables METHOD  aapt  SRC   home user public html dropfolders apk  TGT   home user public html apk  if   -d   SRC    then mkdir -p  SRC if   -d   TGT   then mkdir -p  TGT    Functions get apk filename          if     1          then return 1  fi     local A   1      case  METHOD in          apktool               local D  tmp apktool             rm -f -R  D             apktool d -q -f -s --force-manifest -o  D  A             local A   basename  A              local V   cat  D apktool yml   grep  versionName    sed -e  s versionName                   local T   cat  D res values strings xml   grep  string name  title     sed -e  s     gt     -e  s  lt                    rm -f -R  D lt commands gt                          aapt               local A   aapt dump badging  A   grep -e  application-label   -e  VersionName               local V   echo  A   sed -e  s   versionName      -e  s                      local T   echo  A   sed -e  s   application-label      -e  s                                esac     echo   T    echo  V  apk      Begin script for APK in   ls   SRC    apk   do     APKNAME   get apk filename   APK       rm -f  TGT   echo APKNAME   sed  s           apk     mv   APK    TGT   APKNAME done

User · Answer

Kotlin  var ver  String   packageManager getPackageInfo packageName  0  versionName

User · Answer

Following worked for me from the command line   aapt dump badging myapp apk     NOTE  aapt exe is found in a build-tools sub-folder of SDK   For example    lt sdk path gt  build-tools 23 0 2 aapt exe

User · Answer

EditText ET1    EditText  findViewById R id editText1        PackageInfo pinfo      try           pinfo   getPackageManager   getPackageInfo getPackageName    0           String versionName   pinfo versionName          ET1 setText versionName             ET2 setText versionNumber         catch  NameNotFoundException e               TODO Auto-generated catch block         e printStackTrace

User · Answer

If you are using version 2 2 and above of Android Studio then in Android Studio use Build    Analyze APK then select AndroidManifest xml file

User · Answer

final PackageManager pm   getPackageManager    String apkName    example apk   String fullPath   Environment getExternalStorageDirectory           apkName          PackageInfo info   pm getPackageArchiveInfo fullPath  0   Toast makeText this   VersionCode       info versionCode      VersionName       info versionName   Toast LENGTH LONG  show

User · Answer

At the moment  this can be done as follows   ANDROID HOME build-tools 28 0 3 aapt dump badging   lt path to gt   lt app name gt  apk   In General  it will be    ANDROID HOME build-tools  lt version of build tools gt  aapt dump badging   lt path to gt   lt app name gt  apk

User · Answer

Using apkanalyzer that is now part of cmdline-tools    apkanalyzer manifest version-code my app apk 1   apkanalyzer manifest version-name my app apk 1 2 3 4

[android] Get Android .apk file VersionName or VersionCode WITHOUT installing apk

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