Java – How to read local.properties android in a java file

I want to add a custom field in local.properties, eg

debug.username=test123
debug.password=abcd1234

You can add a .properties file in the assets folder and read it easily.

Resources resources = context.getResources();
AssetManager assetManager = resources.getAssets();
Properties properties = null;        
InputStream inputStream = assetManager.open(fileName);
properties = new Properties();
properties.load(inputStream);

But don’t want to.
Because I want each of our team members to use local.properties to specify custom properties. This is not part of a version control system.

So how do you read local.properties in the root directory of the Gradle based Android project in a Java file at runtime?

I

know this is an old issue, but I’ve had the same thing recently and I thought I’d share my solution :

1. Set the values in your local.properties file.
2. Read the value in the Gradle build script and set it to the BuildConfig constant.
3. Access the BuildConfig constants in Java code.

local.properties

username=myUsername

build.gradle:

def getUsername() {
    Properties properties = new Properties()
    properties.load(project.rootProject.file('local.properties').newDataInputStream())
    return properties.getProperty("username");
}

android {
    defaultConfig {
        buildConfigField "String", "USERNAME", "\""+getUsername()+"\""
    }
}

Sample Java class:

package your.package.name;

class MyClass {
    String getUsername() {
        return BuildConfig.USERNAME;  Will return "myUsername"
    }
}