tdeffains commented 1 year ago

Aging devices: minSdkVersion API level recommendation

Platform

OS	OS version	Langage
Android	-	Gradle

Main caracteristics

ID	Title	Category	Sub-category
-	minSdkVersion API level recommendation	Environment	Aging devices

Severity / Remediation Cost

Severity	Remediation Cost
-	-

Rule short description

Set application minSdkVersion to high API level will make users' devices obsolete regarding the application.

Rule complete description

Text

As per Android Studio API Version Distribution minimum API Level 21 reaches 99,3% of devices Also Jetpack Compose is now the reference for building UI and requires API Level 21

Android Studio API Version Distribution https://apilevels.com/ https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose/setup

build.gradle

defaultConfig {
        minSdkVersion 21
}

Implementation principle

Retrieve application build.gradle file
Extract android {} bloc
Extract defaultConfig {} bloc
Check if the minSdkVersion or minSdk version set (warning: it may be set to some hardcoded value set in the root build.gradle file) is higher than 21 https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/sdk-versions#minsdkversion
Variant (open discussion)

Previous implementation may change as a new Android version is released each year (with incremented API level)
Repeat previous steps from 1 to 3
Instead of comparing to 21, compare to the latest API level minus [static number - to be defined/discussed]
- Latest API level can be retrieved here (do not take into account Developer Preview versions)
- Warning - how to determine [static number] knowing that Google may release several versions per year (history)

olegoaer commented 10 months ago

I agree. Maybe scraping from the https://apilevels.com/ website enable to determine the ideal minSdkVersion

I don't know if embedding a scraping step in a sonar detection rule is commonplace. But let's try!