Get android:versionName manifest element in code

No need to parse the AndroidManifest.xml file for this.

You can get this by using:

try
{
    String app_ver = this.getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(this.getPackageName(), 0).versionName;
}
catch (NameNotFoundException e)
{
    Log.e(tag, e.getMessage());
}

Use this inside your onCreate() method.

In case this is helpful to anyone else, you can also access @string resources from AndroidManifest.xml like you can from other xml files.

So for example, in AndroidManifest.xml:

android:versionName="@string/app_versionName"

and in code:

string versionName = getResources().getString(R.string.app_versionName);

This way you don't need the (annoying, imo) try/catch statement. I'm not sure if this is an approved way of doing things, but it makes sense to me.

If you're using the Android Studio, the version name is available in the class BuildConfig. This class in generated at compile time:

String versionName = BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME;

This is the cleanest way retrieving the version name.

So far, i used the below code snippet from this article and successfully got the version code and version name from AndroidManifest.xml

/* Get android:versionName */
String versionName = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0).versionName;

/* Get android:versionCode */
int versionCode = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0).versionCode;