Creating an obfuscated APK file from MobileFirst Studio

To create an obfuscated application package (.apk) file in IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Studio, you edit the Android native project properties file, then build your application in release mode.

Before you begin

You must be using Android API level 19 or higher.
You must be familiar with the Android development and build process. For more information, see the Android developer website.
You must be familiar with the ProGuard tool. See "ProGuard" at the Android developer website.
Ensure that the ANDROID_HOME and JAVA_HOME environment variables are set.

About this task

The following steps assume that you are developing in an Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE).

Procedure

Complete the appropriate steps in the following table, depending on whether you are developing a native or a hybrid application:

Native Android application	Hybrid Android application
Copy the file proguard-project.txt from the MobileFirst Native API for Android application to your Android project in Eclipse. Open the project.properties file with a text editor and add the text `proguard.config=proguard-project.txt` on a separate line in the file.	Open the `project_name`/apps/`app_name`/android/native/project.properties file with a text editor. In the project.properties file that you just opened, uncomment the line `proguard.config=proguard-project.txt`.

Add any other configuration details that might be needed by your application to the proguard-project.txt file.
Build your application in release mode.
Save a copy of the mapping.txt file. The mapping.txt file defines how your classes are obfuscated and is needed to debug stack traces.
Important: For each build that you publish, copy the mapping.txt file or save it under a new name because subsequent builds will overwrite the file. It is important to save this file for each build for which you might need to restore a stack trace.