android - Multiple Apps use same content provider

Question

I am developing a set of apps that are distinguished only in certain brandings (think different sports teams); however, I am running into a problem where I am using one Library project for all of the specifically branded apps and want to use the same ContentProvider for all of them. When I created the ContentProvider I declared the AUTHORITY as a constant in the class (per the dev example code) and I am using the same authority in every specific app in the manifest files. It looks like I can't use the same authority across every app as I get this error when trying to install a second app (I install one branded one just fine but the second install):

WARN/PackageManager(66): Can't install because provider name com.xxx.Provider (in package com.xxx) is already used by com.zzz

I've tried several approaches but none of them seem to work. One idea that I haven't done yet, was to create a library jar and just omit the Provider class I have and customize it in each specific app. Any ideas on how to get around this problem without resorting to that?

Answer 1

It's an old question, but I was looking at doing something similar recently. With the Build flavours, its really straight forward now.

Specify the BuildConfigField in the gradle file:

    productFlavors {
    free {
        applicationId "com.example.free"
        buildConfigField 'String', 'AUTHORITY', '"com.example.free.contentprovider"'
    }

    paid {
        applicationId "com.example.paid"
        buildConfigField 'String', 'AUTHORITY', '"com.example.paid.contentprovider"'
    }

Specify the provider authority in the manifest:

    <provider
        android:name=".ContentProvider"
        android:authorities="${applicationId}.contentprovider" />

Set the authority in the provider using the BuildConfigField Variable:

    public static final String AUTHORITY = BuildConfig.AUTHORITY