Android Studio: Switching a URL depending on buildtype? (used for testing in debug /release)

Question

I have been reading something about variants and buildtypes and I don't know if I am understanding it right but I would like to store a URL for locahost (testing) and one for production (live site on the internet).

And I need to switch them depending on which buildtype. Is this the right way to do this ? or is there another alternative ?

Does anyone have a small example ?

Is there a way of storing this information in a file that I do not need to commit to source control ? I am using the gradle.properties file for storing some passwords that gradle uses for the signings.. This works great as this file I do not share in version control.

I am a little confused of the correct method to use and how to implement it.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can use the BuildConfig for supplying different URLs for each BuildType

buildTypes {
    debug {
        buildConfigField "String", "SERVER_URL", '"http://someurl/"'
    }
    release{
        buildConfigField "String", "SERVER_URL", '"http://someotherurl/"'
    }
}   

The BuildConfig will be autogenerated each time you sync your project with the gradle file. In your code, you can access the URL like this:

BuildConfig.SERVER_URL

If you don't want to commit these URLs, you can store them in your gradle.properties just like your password and such and reference them in the build.gradle.

buildConfigField "String", "SERVER_URL", serverurl.debug