[google_sign_in] Android documentation is wrong

[tudor07]

I'm trying to use Google Sign In and it works fine on iOS but on Android the documentation is weird/not clear.

For example I'm trying to init the library like this:

final googleUser = await GoogleSignIn(
  serverClientId: 'your_server_client_id',
  clientId: 'your_client_id'
).signIn();

However, in the documentation it says this in regards to the clientId param (source):

This option is not supported on all platforms (e.g. Android)

And it says this in regards to serverClientId param (source):

Optional and not supported on all platforms (e.g. web)

Which implies that serverClientId is working on Android.

However if we look at the implementation here, the serverClientId is actually not used and not only that but clientId param is used even if the documentation says it is not supported on Android.

[huycozy]

Hi @tudor07

"Optional and not supported on all platforms (e.g. web)"

Which implies that serverClientId is working on Android.

IMO, this speculation is not correct. The web is only one example of unsupported platforms. It's not sure about including Android in there.

However if we look at the implementation here, the serverClientId is actually not used and not only that but clientId param is used even if the documentation says it is not supported on Android.

This is due to the inference above. And you can see the clientId and serverClientId parameters are optional, which means they can be used or not depending on the case.

However, yes, the documentation is pretty unclear about supported platforms.
Does the above explanation make sense to you?

[tudor07]

Makes sense.
I also want to add that if I used the clientId param on Android, the feature would not work. Once I stopped using it then auth worked. Taking this into consideration maybe clientId should be removed altogether from Android if it's really not supported and also breaks the feature as it was in my case.

[huycozy]

Makes sense. I also want to add that if I used the clientId param on Android, the feature would not work. Once I stopped using it then auth worked. Taking this into consideration maybe clientId should be removed altogether from Android if it's really not supported and also breaks the feature as it was in my case.

@tudor07 In this case, updating documentation can help avoid such problems. The README docs (Android, iOS) should be updated to be clearer, the same with Web.
Labeling this issue for further opinions! Thanks!

[tudor07]

Sure. My follow-up question would be, if clientId param, which is optional on Android, breaks the functionality if it is used, why not remove it from Android library?

[jargalbat]

Same issue here. iOS works fine. But android had some issues. I got the server auth code but it's not working when checking on my back-end.
final googleSignIn = GoogleSignIn( scopes: [ 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email', 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile', 'openid', ], serverClientId: 'myid...', );
I hope this will be fixed on Android in the future :)