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I've been working on a React Native app and just noticed there are two different AndroidManifest.xml files: android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml and android/app/src/debug/AndroidManifest.xml. What's the difference between these two? And more generally, what's the difference between the debug and main folders in general? Is one used when you're running your app on an emulator and the other used when the app's been pushed to the store, etc?

Andry
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gkeenley
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1 Answers1

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AndroidManifest in the main directory will be used when you generate a release APK, AndroidManifest in the debug folder will add and/or replace things in the main AndroidManifest when running in dev mode. Running on emulator has nothing to do with dev/release modes. Other than that, you can put more things into the debug folder (like an app icon) that will replace things in your main folder when running in dev mode.

Radek Czemerys
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  • thanks for your insight. What's dev/release mode and how is dev mode different from running on the emulator? Is dev mode a flag you set somewhere so that you can use things like the app/src/debug folder? – gkeenley Oct 01 '19 at 16:23
  • You can run with dev/release on a device or emulator, the device has nothing to do with the mode you choose. There are many resources on debug/release modes, please google https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29027643/android-studio-run-debug-release-version-of-app – Radek Czemerys Oct 02 '19 at 09:45