AndroidManifest can not be set to an absolute path

[SamMonoRT]

Description

Copied over from dotnet/runtime#73311
Description
Microsoft.Android.Sdk.DefaultProperties.targets is always settings $(AndroidManifest) to AndroidManifest.xml if empty. Xamarin.Android.Common.targets is settings _AndroidManifestAbs always to $(ProjectDir)$(AndroidManifest) as long as $(AndroidManifest) is not empty.

There is no clean way to set the path to an absolute one (as part of an SDK) besides hooking in before _GetAndroidPackageName and resetting $(AndroidManifest) and defining $(_AndroidManifestAbs) myself. This feels a bit hacky.

Reproduction Steps
Set C:...\AndroidManifest.xml

Expected behavior
'$(_AndroidManifestAbs)' == 'C:...\AndroidManifest.xml'

Actual behavior
'$(_AndroidManifestAbs)' == '$(ProjectDir)C:...\AndroidManifest.xml'

Regression?
No response

Known Workarounds


<_AndroidManifestAbs Condition=" '$(AndroidManifest)' != '' ">$(AndroidManifest)</_AndroidManifestAbs>




Configuration
No response

Other information
No response

Steps to Reproduce

See Description.

@Falco20019 dotnet/maui is already doing exactly what you describe:

https://github.com/dotnet/maui/blob/f1c358800c5276bc16290164eaf98c60f92da9fe/.nuspec/Microsoft.Maui.Controls.SingleProject.targets#L40

Is the problem finding right place to set this value? .NET workloads can probably run .targets in a different order that makes this work.

Did you find any workaround?

No response

Relevant log output

No response

[jonathanpeppers]

As mentioned here, dotnet/maui is already doing this:

dotnet/runtime#73311 (comment)

@Falco20019 did you take a look at what they are doing:

https://github.com/dotnet/maui/blob/f1c358800c5276bc16290164eaf98c60f92da9fe/.nuspec/Microsoft.Maui.Controls.SingleProject.targets#L40

Does it work if you try something like this?

Hi @Falco20019. We have added the "need-info" label to this issue, which indicates that we have an open question for you before we can take further action. This issue will be closed automatically in 7 days if we do not hear back from you by then - please feel free to re-open it if you come back to this issue after that time.

[Falco20019]

AFAIK AndroidProjectFolder is only relative to ProjectDir, which is why it works in this case (see PlatformsProjectFolder). This is still not allowing absolute paths to work, since this also has the assumption, that when _AndroidManifestAbs is calculated, $(ProjectDir) will be prepented to it. Just try setting PlatformsProjectFolder to $(ProjectDir)\Platforms\ to make it absolute instead of relative, and you should run into the same issue.

[jonathanpeppers]

@Falco20019 can you give some details why you need the AndroidManifest.xml path an absolute path? I think some details on what you're trying to accomplish will help us prioritize this. Thanks!