Why do I need an Android Support Repository ? What does it do and contain?

  • If you are given an exhaustive answer, mark it as correct (a daw opposite the selected answer). - Nicolas Chabanovsky ♦

2 answers 2

Android Support Repository - local copy of Maven repository on your computer, which contains compiled versions (.aar) of Google support libraries (such as support: appcompat , support: design , support: v7 , etc.)

Located along the path: \Android\Sdk\extras\android\m2repository\com\android\support

It is used for IDE offline work and speeding up the project build, as in this case it is not necessary to download these libraries from the Internet, when they are needed in the project, it receives them from your computer.

If you don’t use any Google support libraries, then you don’t need a local repository copy, but in modern android development it’s hard to imagine an application that doesn’t use these libraries.

Android Support Library is a local copy of the source codes of Google support libraries.
It is used to, in fact, see how everything is arranged there, copy resources for customization, make custom views based on the widgets of support libraries and so on.

This is the auxiliary library repository. Keeps a ton of all kinds of libraries that you can use.

  • one
    That is, if I do not explicitly use the library from there, then it is not needed? - Ivan