Resource IDs will be non final in AGP 7.0

[gilgoldzweig]

Resource IDs will be non-final in Android Gradle Plugin version 7.0, avoid using them as annotation attributes

This is a problem because it means I won't be able to use R.layout variables in annotations.

I currently use it to associate the layout file's integer value with the R class variable name; this is to locate the layout file from the resource folder and later call inflate(layoutResId).

Currently, I solve this issue like so
Example

Given a simple ViewHolder annotation.

annotation class ViewHolder(val layoutResId: Int)

With the usage

@ViewHolder(R.layout.sample)
data class Sample(val text: String) : GencyclerModel

And the Generated R.layout class.

public final class R {
    public static final class layout {
        public static final int sample = 567541283;
    }
}

When processing the ViewHolder annotation, the processor would receive the integer value 567541283.

In the first processing cycle, the processor would analyze the R class and create a table to map the integer to the layout name, in this case, 567541283 <-> sample.

With that info, I can iterate over the layout resource directory and find the layout file with the name sample.xml.
and I can also later call inflate(R.layout.sample)

The field will be non-final in the new version, thus throw a compile-time error.

An annotation argument must be a compile-time constant.

Possible solutions

1. (Butterknife solution) Creating a duplicate R class that will generate the R.layout variables as static final, thus removing my R class dependency.

2. (AndroidAnnotations solution). Using strings instead of the Resources class. I'm not too fond of this solution because it will cause issues if the layout is renamed or a typo.

I'm not sure how happy I feel about both, but I honestly don't see other ways to solve it.

If anyone has a better way to solve this, I would love to hear, and if not, which solution would you prefer?

Thanks

[gilgoldzweig]

I also asked the question in stackoverflow