Question

I’m looking at the Android Camera code, and when I try importing android.os.SystemProperties, it cannot be found.

Here is the file I’m looking at:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Camera/+/eclair-release/src/com/android/camera/VideoCamera.java

I created a new 2.1 project and tried importing this namespace again, but It still cannot be found. I checked https://developer.android.com and SystemProperties was not listed.

Did I miss something?

Answer 1

This is the class in the Android source code:

https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/eclair-release/core/java/android/os/SystemProperties.java

See {@hide} in the class JavaDoc? That means this class won’t be exported as part of the public SDK.

The camera app uses it as it’s internal and they won’t use the public SDK to build it.

You may still be able to get at this class

1. by reflection or

2. by getting the source, removing @hide and making your own
   customized SDK.

However pretty much by definition you are now going ‘off SDK‘ and therefore your app may well be broken or get different behavior on OS versions as the Android folks will make little effort not to change this class between versions.