adbkit-apkreader

adbkit-apkreader

adbkit-apkreader provides a Node.js API for extracting information from Android APK files. For example, it allows you to read the AndroidManifest.xml of an existing APK file.

Getting started

Install via NPM:

npm install --save adbkit-apkreader

Note that while adbkit-apkreader is written in CoffeeScript, it is compiled to JavaScript before being published to NPM, which means that you are not required to use CoffeeScript.

Examples

Read the AndroidManifest.xml of an APK

const util = require('util')
const ApkReader = require('adbkit-apkreader')

ApkReader.open('HelloApp.apk')
  .then(reader => reader.readManifest())
  .then(manifest => console.log(util.inspect(manifest, { depth: null })))

API

ApkReader

ApkReader.open(file)

Alternate syntax to manually creating an ApkReader instance. Currently, only files are supported, but support for streams might be added at some point.

Note that currently this method cannot reject as the file is opened lazily, but this may change in the future and therefore returns a Promise for fewer future compatibility issues. On a related node, calling the constructor directly is still possible, but discouraged.

• file The path to the APK file.
• Returns: A Promise that resolves with an ApkReader instance.

reader.readManifest()

Reads and parses the AndroidManifest.xml file inside the APK and returns a simplified object representation of it.

• Returns: A Promise that resolves with a JavaScript Object representation of the manifest. See example output below. Rejects on error (e.g. if parsing was unsuccessful).

{ versionCode: 1,
  versionName: '1.0',
  package: 'com.example.hello.helloapp.app',
  usesPermissions: [],
  permissions: [],
  permissionTrees: [],
  permissionGroups: [],
  instrumentation: null,
  usesSdk: { minSdkVersion: 7, targetSdkVersion: 19 },
  usesConfiguration: null,
  usesFeatures: [],
  supportsScreens: null,
  compatibleScreens: [],
  supportsGlTextures: [],
  application:
   { theme: 'resourceId:0x7f0b0000',
     label: 'resourceId:0x7f0a000e',
     icon: 'resourceId:0x7f020057',
     debuggable: true,
     allowBackup: true,
     activities:
      [ { label: 'resourceId:0x7f0a000e',
          name: 'com.example.hello.helloapp.app.MainActivity',
          intentFilters:
           [ { actions: [ { name: 'android.intent.action.MAIN' } ],
               categories: [ { name: 'android.intent.category.LAUNCHER' } ],
               data: [] } ],
          metaData: [] } ],
     activityAliases: [],
     launcherActivities:
      [ { label: 'resourceId:0x7f0a000e',
          name: 'com.example.hello.helloapp.app.MainActivity',
          intentFilters:
           [ { actions: [ { name: 'android.intent.action.MAIN' } ],
               categories: [ { name: 'android.intent.category.LAUNCHER' } ],
               data: [] } ],
          metaData: [] } ],
     services: [],
     receivers: [],
     providers: [],
     usesLibraries: [] } }

reader.readXml(path)

Reads and parses the binary XML file at the given path inside the APK file. Attempts to be somewhat compatible with the DOM API.

• path The path to the binary XML file inside the APK. For example, giving AndroidManifest.xml as the path would parse the manifest (but you'll probably want to use reader.readManifestSync() instead).
• Returns: A Promise that resolves with a JavaScript Object representation of the root node of the XML file. All nodes including the root node have the properties listed below. Rejects on error (e.g. if parsing was unsuccessful).
  • namespaceURI The namespace URI or null if none.
  • nodeType 1 for element nodes, 2 for attribute nodes, and 4 for CData sections.
  • nodeName The node name.
  • For element nodes, the following additional properties are present:
    • attributes An array of attribute nodes.
    • childNodes An array of child nodes.
  • For attribute nodes, the following additional properties are present:
    • name The attribute name.
    • value The attribute value, if possible to represent as a simple value.
    • typedValue May be available when the attribute represents a complex value. See android.util.TypedValue for more information. Has the following properties:
      • value The value, which might null, String, Boolean, Number or even an Object for the most complex types.
      • type A String representation of the type of the value.
      • rawType A raw integer presentation of the type of the value.
  • For CData nodes, the following additional properties are present:
    • data The CData.
    • typedValue May be available if the section represents a more complex type. See above for details.

More information

• android.util.TypedValue For more information about value types.
• Dong Liu's excellent Java-based APK parser, which was used as a reference implementation.
• A detailed blog port about Android's binary XML format
• Stackoverflow discussion about the topic
• android-apktool The most advanced CLI/Java-based APK tool.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

See LICENSE.

Copyright © The OpenSTF Project. All Rights Reserved.

Changelog

2.0.0 (2017-01-24)

Breaking changes

It was discovered that our previous Zip parser, adm-zip, could not handle all valid Zip formats. We've therefore switched to yauzl which provides an asynchronous interface. Therefore the following breaking API changes were required:

• Replaced ApkReader.readFile() with a Promise-returning ApkReader.open() which describes it better, and we have no way of supporting the previous synchronous method with the new dependency.
• Replaced ApkReader.readManifestSync() with a Promise-returning ApkReader.readManifest() as we have no way of supporting the synchronous method with the new dependency.
• Replaced ApkReader.readXmlSync() with a Promise-returning ApkReader.readXml() as we have no way of supporting the synchronous method with the new dependency.