Clean way to define support library dependencies

on android

As the support library started getting bigger with more tools in it, the team at google have suggested developers to pick and choose the individual pieces of the library in their dependencies. More recently our build.gradle files started to look like this

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.1.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:23.1.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:pallete-v7:23.1.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:cardview-v7:23.1.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:23.1.0'
}

So when a new release comes out, we have to change the version number in every single line. Chris Banes, from the Android developer relations team, in Android Dev Summit 2015 has given this great tip to solve this problem.

Great! But there is a small catch here

compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:${supportLibVersion}' doesn't work
compile "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:${supportLibVersion}" WORKS!!!

If you haven't noticed yet, you should use double quotes

So the final code looks like this

ext {
    supportLibVersion = '23.1.1'
}

dependencies {
    compile "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:design:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:pallete-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:cardview-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
}

By the way, Android Studio is intelligent enough that it will suggest you to update the version when there is a new one out, even in the above format. All hail IntelliJ.