copy static files to build output folder in gradle - android-studio

Question

I was using ANT before (Android Project) and i had "static" files in the same packages as my code
Here is an example
src/com/my/app/test/Parser.java
src/com/my/app/test/json_to_parse.json
When executing the unit tests, the json file was copied into the gen folder, therfor it was possible to access the json in the test with
getClass().getResourceAsStream(fileName)
I had to convert the project to gradle, but now the tests are failing.
After checking the "build" folder, i've realised, the .json files are not there, therefor the getResourceAsStream method returns null.
Any idea how to include these "static" files (json, xml, ...) into the build folder?

Answer 1

Moving the files into the resources folder did not work out of the box in Android Studio (even though is should have)
This should be fixed in Android Studio 1.2.
However, this is what i did:
Moved all static files into the resources folder.
In my unit-test module i've added this to the build.gradle file
task copyTestResources(type: Copy) {
from "${projectDir}/src/test/resources"
into "${buildDir}/classes/test"
}
processTestResources.dependsOn copyTestResources
Now, all files located inside src/test/resources will be copied into /classes/test where i can access them with
getClass().getResourceAsStream(fileName)
If i keep the package structure inside the resources folder the same as it was in the java folder, i don't need to adjust any code.
To complete the story a bit more:
JUnit4 runner requires
getClass().getResourceAsStream(name)
while Robolectric requires
getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(name)

Answer 2

The files you are asking about are called "resource files" in Maven/Gradle lingo.
Gradle assumes that you are using the Maven Standard Directory Layout.
So, either you move your files into src/test/resources (then Gradle will pick them up automatically), or you tell Gradle that it should look for resources in some other place.
In the latter case, you need to modify the processTestResources task. However, keeping resource files in the same directory as source code is a bad practice. So I advise the former option.

Answer 3

if your problem is happen when you create apk with AndroidStudio.
you can create a jar file that includes your resources with jar.exe
for example i put a.txt into resources directory
and run this code in cmd:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_79\bin\jar" cvfe res.jar -c resources
after that a jar file "res.jar" was created
then add that res.jar into libs folder in your project
when your apk is creating resources are added to your final apk and you can use this code to acsess a.txt:
someclass.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("resources/a.txt");
with this job no need to change Gradle setting.