I am currently working on a project to automatically generate very simple Android apps

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Asked: June 12, 20262026-06-12T18:32:48+00:00 2026-06-12T18:32:48+00:00

I am currently working on a project to automatically generate very simple Android apps

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I am currently working on a project to automatically generate very simple Android apps from UML models. Both the Java parts and the XML parts are working ok, but I have run into a problem: the R.java file.

As I see it, I have to options of generating the R.java file.

The preferred way would be to make the Android SDK generate it for me, based on the XML files. But how could I do that? I can not open Eclipse and choose “Clean project”, as I would normally do, since this is supposed to be an automated process. Is there any command line commands I could run? Something like apk -generateR -/path/R.java would be perfect.
The other possibility I see is to generate it myself, by simply enumerating all resources and outputting a file with the R.java format.

If alternative 2 is the only way, the main issue I have is how to generate the numbers. A typical sequence of items in R.java is as follows:

    public static final int button_buy=0x7f020000;
    public static final int button_search=0x7f020001;
    public static final int cover=0x7f020002;
    ...
    public static final int Artist_name=0x7f05000e;
    public static final int Artist2_name=0x7f05001c;
    public static final int Artist2NameLabel=0x7f05001d;

How is that generated? Are the numbers important? Would everything work now (and in future versions?) if I simply started on zero, and counted my way through them?

    public static final int button_buy=0x00000000;
    public static final int button_search=0x00000001;
    public static final int cover=0x00000002;
    ...
    public static final int Artist_name=0x00000003;
    public static final int Artist2_name=0x00000004;
    public static final int Artist2NameLabel=0x00000005;