How to Parse the Androidmanifest.Xml File Inside an .Apk Package

How to parse the AndroidManifest.xml file inside an .apk package

Use android-apktool

There is an application that reads apk files and decodes XMLs to nearly original form.

Usage:

apktool d Gmail.apk && cat Gmail/AndroidManifest.xml

Check android-apktool for more information

AndroidManifest.xml inside APK is not converted to binary

I was using android.useNewApkCreator=false which helped me get past another issue: Entry name 'AndroidManifest.xml' collided.

This is not a good fix though, because the resulting AndroidManifest.xml is not the one you would want anyway. Find the conflicting AndroidManifest.xml and either exclude it or incorporate it in your app. Specifically mine came from a dependency that used CordovaLib.

How to view AndroidManifest.xml from APK file?

Yes you can view XML files of an Android APK file. There is a tool for this: android-apktool

It is a tool for reverse engineering 3rd
party, closed, binary Android apps

How to do this on your Windows System:

1. Download apktool-install-windows-* file
2. Download apktool-* file
3. Unpack both to your Windows directory

Now copy the APK file also in that directory and run the following command in your command prompt:

apktool d HelloWorld.apk ./HelloWorld

This will create a directory "HelloWorld" in your current directory. Inside it you can find the AndroidManifest.xml file in decrypted format, and you can also find other XML files inside the "HelloWorld/res/layout" directory.

Here HelloWorld.apk is your Android APK file.

See the below screen shot for more information:

Extracting AndroidManifest.xml file from apk using just Java

If you look into the question on your comment link, there is an answer (Ribo's community wiki) providing a code snippet in Java to decode the manifest XML in the APK, and then recreate the XML.

Providing the APK file, the code then extracts the manifest and recreate it.

I just read the code very quickly, and I didn't find anything tied to Android (i.e., pure Java). So I believe you can copy that code and create a standalone Java jar to be executed on demand. Or integrated into code, in case you want go further.

How can I read the manifest of an Android apk file using C# .Net?

I used SharpZipLib and this answer and created a .Net version.

string apkPath = "C:\\app.apk";
ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipInputStream zip = new ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipInputStream(File.OpenRead(apkPath));
var filestream = new FileStream(apkPath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipFile zipfile = new ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipFile(filestream);
ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipEntry item;


 while ((item = zip.GetNextEntry()) != null)
 {
    if (item.Name == "AndroidManifest.xml")
    {
        byte[] bytes = new byte[50 * 1024];

        Stream strm = zipfile.GetInputStream(item);
        int size = strm.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);

        using (BinaryReader s = new BinaryReader(strm))
        {
            byte[] bytes2 = new byte[size];
            Array.Copy(bytes, bytes2, size);
            AndroidDecompress decompress = new AndroidDecompress();
            content = decompress.decompressXML(bytes);
        }
     }
  }

and

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;

/// <summary>
/// Summary description for AndroidDecompress
/// </summary>
public class AndroidDecompress
{
    private string result = "";
    // decompressXML -- Parse the 'compressed' binary form of Android XML docs 
    // such as for AndroidManifest.xml in .apk files
    public static int endDocTag = 0x00100101;
    public static int startTag = 0x00100102;
    public static int endTag = 0x00100103;
    public string decompressXML(byte[] xml)
    {
        // Compressed XML file/bytes starts with 24x bytes of data,
        // 9 32 bit words in little endian order (LSB first):
        //   0th word is 03 00 08 00
        //   3rd word SEEMS TO BE:  Offset at then of StringTable
        //   4th word is: Number of strings in string table
        // WARNING: Sometime I indiscriminently display or refer to word in 
        //   little endian storage format, or in integer format (ie MSB first).
        int numbStrings = LEW(xml, 4 * 4);

        // StringIndexTable starts at offset 24x, an array of 32 bit LE offsets
        // of the length/string data in the StringTable.
        int sitOff = 0x24;  // Offset of start of StringIndexTable

        // StringTable, each string is represented with a 16 bit little endian 
        // character count, followed by that number of 16 bit (LE) (Unicode) chars.
        int stOff = sitOff + numbStrings * 4;  // StringTable follows StrIndexTable

        // XMLTags, The XML tag tree starts after some unknown content after the
        // StringTable.  There is some unknown data after the StringTable, scan
        // forward from this point to the flag for the start of an XML start tag.
        int xmlTagOff = LEW(xml, 3 * 4);  // Start from the offset in the 3rd word.
        // Scan forward until we find the bytes: 0x02011000(x00100102 in normal int)
        for (int ii = xmlTagOff; ii < xml.Length - 4; ii += 4)
        {
            if (LEW(xml, ii) == startTag)
            {
                xmlTagOff = ii; break;
            }
        } // end of hack, scanning for start of first start tag

        // XML tags and attributes:
        // Every XML start and end tag consists of 6 32 bit words:
        //   0th word: 02011000 for startTag and 03011000 for endTag 
        //   1st word: a flag?, like 38000000
        //   2nd word: Line of where this tag appeared in the original source file
        //   3rd word: FFFFFFFF ??
        //   4th word: StringIndex of NameSpace name, or FFFFFFFF for default NS
        //   5th word: StringIndex of Element Name
        //   (Note: 01011000 in 0th word means end of XML document, endDocTag)

        // Start tags (not end tags) contain 3 more words:
        //   6th word: 14001400 meaning?? 
        //   7th word: Number of Attributes that follow this tag(follow word 8th)
        //   8th word: 00000000 meaning??

        // Attributes consist of 5 words: 
        //   0th word: StringIndex of Attribute Name's Namespace, or FFFFFFFF
        //   1st word: StringIndex of Attribute Name
        //   2nd word: StringIndex of Attribute Value, or FFFFFFF if ResourceId used
        //   3rd word: Flags?
        //   4th word: str ind of attr value again, or ResourceId of value

        // TMP, dump string table to tr for debugging
        //tr.addSelect("strings", null);
        //for (int ii=0; ii<numbStrings; ii++) {
        //  // Length of string starts at StringTable plus offset in StrIndTable
        //  String str = compXmlString(xml, sitOff, stOff, ii);
        //  tr.add(String.valueOf(ii), str);
        //}
        //tr.parent();

        // Step through the XML tree element tags and attributes
        int off = xmlTagOff;
        int indent = 0;
        int startTagLineNo = -2;
        while (off < xml.Length)
        {
            int tag0 = LEW(xml, off);
            //int tag1 = LEW(xml, off+1*4);
            int lineNo = LEW(xml, off + 2 * 4);
            //int tag3 = LEW(xml, off+3*4);
            int nameNsSi = LEW(xml, off + 4 * 4);
            int nameSi = LEW(xml, off + 5 * 4);

            if (tag0 == startTag)
            { // XML START TAG
                int tag6 = LEW(xml, off + 6 * 4);  // Expected to be 14001400
                int numbAttrs = LEW(xml, off + 7 * 4);  // Number of Attributes to follow
                //int tag8 = LEW(xml, off+8*4);  // Expected to be 00000000
                off += 9 * 4;  // Skip over 6+3 words of startTag data
                String name = compXmlString(xml, sitOff, stOff, nameSi);
                //tr.addSelect(name, null);
                startTagLineNo = lineNo;

                // Look for the Attributes

                string sb = "";
                for (int ii = 0; ii < numbAttrs; ii++)
                {
                    int attrNameNsSi = LEW(xml, off);  // AttrName Namespace Str Ind, or FFFFFFFF
                    int attrNameSi = LEW(xml, off + 1 * 4);  // AttrName String Index
                    int attrValueSi = LEW(xml, off + 2 * 4); // AttrValue Str Ind, or FFFFFFFF
                    int attrFlags = LEW(xml, off + 3 * 4);
                    int attrResId = LEW(xml, off + 4 * 4);  // AttrValue ResourceId or dup AttrValue StrInd
                    off += 5 * 4;  // Skip over the 5 words of an attribute

                    String attrName = compXmlString(xml, sitOff, stOff, attrNameSi);
                    String attrValue = attrValueSi != -1
                      ? compXmlString(xml, sitOff, stOff, attrValueSi)
                      : /*"resourceID 0x" + */attrResId.ToString();
                    sb += " " + attrName + "=\"" + attrValue + "\"";
                    //tr.add(attrName, attrValue);
                }
                prtIndent(indent, "<" + name + sb + ">");
                indent++;

            }
            else if (tag0 == endTag)
            { // XML END TAG
                indent--;
                off += 6 * 4;  // Skip over 6 words of endTag data
                String name = compXmlString(xml, sitOff, stOff, nameSi);
                prtIndent(indent, "</" + name + ">  \r\n"/*+"(line " + startTagLineNo + "-" + lineNo + ")"*/);
                //tr.parent();  // Step back up the NobTree

            }
            else if (tag0 == endDocTag)
            {  // END OF XML DOC TAG
                break;

            }
            else
            {
                prt("  Unrecognized tag code '" + tag0.ToString("X")
                  + "' at offset " + off);
                break;
            }
        } // end of while loop scanning tags and attributes of XML tree
        //prt("    end at offset " + off);


        return result;
    } // end of decompressXML


    public String compXmlString(byte[] xml, int sitOff, int stOff, int strInd)
    {
        if (strInd < 0) return null;
        int strOff = stOff + LEW(xml, sitOff + strInd * 4);
        return compXmlStringAt(xml, strOff);
    }


    public static String spaces = "                                             ";
    public void prtIndent(int indent, String str)
    {
        prt(spaces.Substring(0, Math.Min(indent * 2, spaces.Length)) + str);
    }

    private void prt(string p)
    {
        result += p;
    }


    // compXmlStringAt -- Return the string stored in StringTable format at
    // offset strOff.  This offset points to the 16 bit string length, which 
    // is followed by that number of 16 bit (Unicode) chars.
    public String compXmlStringAt(byte[] arr, int strOff)
    {
        int strLen = arr[strOff + 1] << 8 & 0xff00 | arr[strOff] & 0xff;
        byte[] chars = new byte[strLen];
        for (int ii = 0; ii < strLen; ii++)
        {
            chars[ii] = arr[strOff + 2 + ii * 2];
        }


        return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(chars);  // Hack, just use 8 byte chars
    } // end of compXmlStringAt


    // LEW -- Return value of a Little Endian 32 bit word from the byte array
    //   at offset off.
    public int LEW(byte[] arr, int off)
    {
        return (int)(arr[off + 3] << 24 & 0xff000000 | arr[off + 2] << 16 & 0xff0000 | arr[off + 1] << 8 & 0xff00 | arr[off] & 0xFF);
    } // end of LEW

}

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