I am performing Android app reverse engineering (decompilation and further analysis). I wish to analyse the package dependencies between different packages inside the same apk file. Is there any tool which does this? Else, how can I deduce package dependency in apk files?
Package dependencies in Android apk files
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The only dependencies that I have run into with apk files are with the framework from the device. If you are dealing with a standard app available from the Play, then it generally contains everything that it needs inside its own package.
Some of the custom builds like Amazon Kindle Fire, Barns & Noble Nook, etc have built custom launchers and other services which then offer other functions through their frameworks.
The framework-res.apk is typically stored in the /system/framework location. You can extract that from your device and place it in your apktool folder of your %userprofile%/~. Apktool (I am assuming that is one of the tools you are using) will then reference it when it does the work.
A tool called Dexter is available to find out all the packages present in an apk. Also, if there is a program dependency among any 2 packages, Dexter show it with an edge. It could be noted that the edges do not have any weight to indicate the strength of the dependency.