Parse versionCode from android apk files

Question

I know .apk files are .zip files, but AndroidManifest.xml looks binary and certainly grep or hex editors haven\'t been successful extracting the versionCode.

Does anybod

Answer 1

they are binary XML files. You can use a tool like AXML2XML to convert the binary XML file into a text-based XML file. There a few different tools, some do better jobs than others.

AXML2XML: http://devtcg.blogspot.com/2008/03/tool-to-read-android-binary-xml-files.html

AXMLPrtiner: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=514412