Android studio build 2 dependencies containing same package

Question

I have two packages as dependencies in an Android project: A and B, defined in build.gradle as following:

dependencies {
    compile 'dependency-A'

    compile files('libs/dependency-B.jar')
}

I can build the project, however when trying to run it I get the following error:

:app:compileDebugSources
:app:transformClassesWithDexForDebug
UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION:
com.android.dex.DexException: Multiple dex files define Lcommon/package/in/both/Dependencies;
at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.readSortableTypes(DexMerger.java:579)
at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.getSortedTypes(DexMerger.java:535)
at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.mergeClassDefs(DexMerger.java:517)
at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.mergeDexes(DexMerger.java:164)
at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.merge(DexMerger.java:188)
at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.mergeLibraryDexBuffers(Main.java:504)
at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.runMonoDex(Main.java:334)
at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.run(Main.java:277)
at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.main(Main.java:245)
at com.android.dx.command.Main.main(Main.java:106)
FAILED
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:transformClassesWithDexForDebug'.

How can I exclude common package or do something about it, so that it would build and run correctly?

I'm using Android Studio 1.5.1, buildToolsVersion 23.0.2, com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.5.0

Mikhail Mikhail · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-28T17:11:25

I haven't found easy and clean solution yet, however here is one possible workaround (if decompiling of any dependency is not prohibited):

Remove common package/classes from dependency-A: unzip .jar file, remove the files, zip the remaining files back in the jar;
Decompile dependency-B with any java-decompiler, e.g. with this one;
Add decompiled dependency-B .java files as part of your module sources or maybe as a separate one;
Build and run the project.

Android studio build 2 dependencies containing same package

1 Answers