Generify

Gradle plugin for Android which lets you use Java generics in your XML layouts.

Usage

Apply the plugin in your build.gradle after the regular 'android' plugin:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    mavenCentral()
  }
  
  dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.14.+'
    classpath 'com.tomreznik:generify:0.1.+'
  }
}

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'generify'

Consider the following custom view class:

public class AwesomeView<T> extends TextView {
  // ...
}

Using Generify, all you have to do is include your app's namespace and provide a generic_type expression, for example:

<com.package.name.AwesomeView
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    app:generic_type="String"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

At compile time, this plugin will generate a subclass of AwesomeView while hard-coding the generic expression:

public class AwesomeViewString extends AwesomeView<String> {
  // ...
}

In addition, your XML references to these views will automatically be replaced with the generated ones.

Multiple types:

<com.package.name.SomeView
    app:generic_type="String,Integer"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

Nested types:

<com.package.name.SomeView
    app:generic_type="java.util.List(String)"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

License

Copyright 2014 Tom Reznik

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.