Ignore specific errors on Android Lint

Android Lint is a powerful tool for Android developers, but sometimes we want to ignore specific errors on Android Lint. There is a lot of ways to do that.

The Android lint tool is a static code analysis tool that checks your Android project source files for potential bugs and optimization improvements for correctness, security, performance, usability, accessibility, and internationalization.

Running

Command line

You can do this directly from the command line:

gradle lint

Android Studio

You can use it within Android Studio:

To run lint in Android Studio go to Analyze > Inspect Code

Configuring

Lint has a lot of option you can use in your build.gradle

lintOptions {
    // put your options here
}

See the complete list of lintOptions

To see the complete list of issues and categories id’s run:

lint --list

Ignoring all Errors

Lint is part of Gradle build process, by default if it fails your build will stop and you will get a message like this:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:lint'.
> Lint found errors in the project; aborting build.

In 99% of the cases, people will start to ignore lint instead of fixing the problems, adding this on build.gradle app

lintOptions {   
    abortOnError false   
}   

But in my opinion, it is the wrong thing to do. If lint is telling that you have a problem, the best thing to do is try to fix it. Lint is a tool to make your app and the UX better.

Ignore specific errors on Android Lint

Sometimes you really need to ignore some lint errors. For example, when you are using setJavaScriptEnabled(true); in your WebView

In this case, you should disable only the specific ids instead of disabling the whole lint.

lintOptions {
    disable 'SetJavaScriptEnabled'
}

You also can also ignore it directly in your code if you prefer:

@SuppressLint "SetJavaScriptEnabled")

Or in your XML layout file

<LinearLayout 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:ignore="SomeLintIssueIdHere" >

If you prefer you can move all your issues rules from a lint.xml file in the root directory of your project.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<lint>
    <issue id="SetJavaScriptEnabled" severity="ignore" />
</lint>