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Centralizing dependencies via dependencies.gradle file

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When working with multi-module projects, it is helpful to centralize dependencies in a single location rather than having them spread across many build files, especially for common libraries such as the Android support libraries and the Firebase libraries.

One recommended way is to separate the Gradle build files, with one build.gradle per module, as well as one in the project root and another one for the dependencies, for example: 

root
  +- gradleScript/
  |     dependencies.gradle
  +- module1/
  |     build.gradle
  +- module2/
  |     build.gradle
  +- build.gradle

Then, all of your dependencies can be located in gradleScript/dependencies.gradle: 

ext {
    // Version
    supportVersion = '24.1.0'

    // Support Libraries dependencies
    supportDependencies = [
            design:            "com.android.support:design:${supportVersion}",
            recyclerView:      "com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:${supportVersion}",
            cardView:          "com.android.support:cardview-v7:${supportVersion}",
            appCompat:         "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:${supportVersion}",
            supportAnnotation: "com.android.support:support-annotations:${supportVersion}",
    ]

    firebaseVersion = '9.2.0';

    firebaseDependencies = [
            core:         "com.google.firebase:firebase-core:${firebaseVersion}",
            database:     "com.google.firebase:firebase-database:${firebaseVersion}",
            storage:      "com.google.firebase:firebase-storage:${firebaseVersion}",
            crash:        "com.google.firebase:firebase-crash:${firebaseVersion}",
            auth:         "com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:${firebaseVersion}",
            messaging:    "com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:${firebaseVersion}",
            remoteConfig: "com.google.firebase:firebase-config:${firebaseVersion}",
            invites:      "com.google.firebase:firebase-invites:${firebaseVersion}",
            adMod:        "com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:${firebaseVersion}",
            appIndexing:  "com.google.android.gms:play-services-appindexing:${firebaseVersion}",
    ];
}

Which can then be applied from that file in the top level file build.gradle like so: 

// Load dependencies
apply from: 'gradleScript/dependencies.gradle'

and in the module1/build.gradle like so: 

// Module build file
dependencies {
    // ...
    compile supportDependencies.appCompat
    compile supportDependencies.design
    compile firebaseDependencies.crash
}

Another approach

A less verbose approach for centralizing library dependencies versions can be achieved by declaring the version number as a variable once, and using it everywhere.

In the workspace root build.gradle add this: 

ext.v = [
    supportVersion:'24.1.1',
]

And in every module that uses the same library add the needed libraries 

compile "com.android.support:support-v4:${v.supportVersion}"
compile "com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:${v.supportVersion}"
compile "com.android.support:design:${v.supportVersion}"
compile "com.android.support:support-annotations:${v.supportVersion}"
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Gradle:
* Gradle for Android
* A basic build.gradle file
* Define and use Build Configuration Fields
* Centralizing dependencies via dependencies.gradle file
* Sign APK without exposing keystore password
* Adding product flavor-specific dependencies
* Specifying different application IDs for build types and product flavors
* Versioning your builds via version.properties file
* Defining product flavors
* Changing output apk name and add version name
* Adding product flavor-specific resources
* Why are there two build.gradle files in an Android Studio project
* Directory structure for flavor-specific resources
* Enable Proguard using gradle
* Ignoring build variant
* Seeing dependency tree
* Enable experimental NDK plugin support for Gradle and AndroidStudio
* Display signing information
* Executing a shell script from gradle
* Show all gradle project tasks
* Delete unaligned apk automatically
* Disable image compression for a smaller APK file size
* Debugging your Gradle errors
* Use gradle.properties for central versionnumberbuildconfigurations
* Defining build types
Table Of Contents
0 Getting Started
1 Layouts
2 Gradle
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4 NavigationView
5 Intent
6 JSON handling with org.json
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8 Resources
9 Data Binding Library
10 Exceptions
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99 Firebase
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159 Otto Event Bus
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260 Singleton Class for Toast Message
261 Fastjson
262 Android Architecture Components
263 Jackson
264 Play Store
265 Loading Bitmaps Effectively
266 Getting system font names
267 Smartcard
268 Convert vietnamese string to english
269 Contributors