Hey React Native 🩵 Developers,
The 𝝠 Expo team has just released SDK 51, packed with amazing features and improvements, including ❝ Expo Fingerprint now in Beta ❞.
In Expo SDK 51, the Fingerprint runtime version policy has been promoted from experimental status to beta. Let’s understand details about it.
Fingerprint is a hash value (a long string of numbers and letters) that represents the exact state of your app’s native code at a certain point in time. When you make changes to the native code, you get a new “fingerprint” for the updated code.
A real-life use case occurs when you install an npm package with native dependencies, the app creates a new fingerprint. For example: npx expo install expo-camera (for expo-based app) or npm install react-native-vision-camera (for bare react native app).
The new @expo/fingerprint package fully supports projects made with Expo CLI and also works with any bare React Native apps to detect any changes in native code. By running npx @expo/fingerprint@latest /path/to/yourProject, you can get a full picture of your project's native setup. Notice that it will identify what changed, for example, if you installed expo-camera, you will see something like this.
The creation of @expo/fingerprint provided answers to all these questions from community:
- Does a pull request include native code changes and need to initiate a new build for testing?
- Is my update compatible with the runtime in my production app? Or will it crash the app?
- Does a project require a development build, or can I experiment with it in Expo Go?
I hope you enjoyed reading it. It would be really great if you could consider giving it a STAR ⭐️.
I'm Anis, Sr. React Native Engineer and the author of React Native Advanced Guide Book with 1.7K STAR ⭐️. Over 5 years in React Native and Full Stack, I’ve built numerous production-grade apps. You can 🩵 CONNECT me in X for any consultation.