Gradle Project and Build Script

External

• https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.Project.html
• Build script structure https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/#N10060
• https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/writing_build_scripts.html

Internal

• Gradle Concepts

Overview

A Project is the main API to use to interact with Gradle. All top level statements within a "build.gradle" build script are delegated to the corresponding Project instance and when executed, modify its state. The build.gradle configuration script is written in the Gradle DSL and it may contain any Groovy language element, variable declarations, script blocks, etc. Groovy single-quoted and double-quoted string literals can be used. The main difference is that double-quoted String literals support String interpolation.

In case of a multi-project build, It is possible to configure a project build from another build script associated with any project in the hierarchy. This capability is called cross-project configuration. Gradle implements cross-project configuration via configuration injection. Configuration injection is the default way to define common behavior.

build.gradle can be created automatically on project setup with gradle init. To make build scripts more concise, Gradle automatically adds the set of default Gradle import statements to the script.

The default name of the build script is "build.gradle" and in most cases there is no need to change it. It can be changed, though, in settings.gradle by setting the "buildFileName" property of the ProjectDescriptor associated with the project whose build script name we want to change:

project(':projectA').buildFileName = 'projectA.gradle'

The project is a collection of tasks.

Example

apply plugin: 'java'

group = "io.example.gradle"
version = "1.0"

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
}

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy.cacheChangingModulesFor 3600, 'seconds'
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.7.12'
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.+'
}

configurations {
    testImplementation.exclude group: 'com.example'
}

compileJava {
    options.compilerArgs += ['-Xlint']
}

javadoc {
    options.charSet = 'UTF-8'
}

task runMain(type: JavaExec) {
    classpath = sourceSets.main.runtimeClasspath
    main = "io.novaordis.playground.gradle.java.Main"
}

Comments

// This is a comment

Project Coordinates

Gradle reads and builds artifacts that are compatible with Maven repositories, so they are described by Maven project coordinates. Project coordinates artifactId, groupId and version can be read or set in the settings configuration file via the ProjectDescriptor interface, or in the build configuration file, described by this article, via the Project interface. These details apply to single project builds and multi-project builds.

Project Name, artifactId

The project's 'name' property contains by default the name of the project's directory. It automatically becomes the project's name coordinate. The Gradle project name is equivalent with Maven artifactId.

The project name can only be set in the initialization phase, in the settings configuration file, via the ProjectDescriptor interface. An attempt to set the project name in the configuration phase or execution phase via the Project interface, for both single, root or sub-project will trigger a Gradle execution error. It can be changed as follows:

rootProject.name = 'something'
...
project(':subproject-A').name = "something else"

though it is probably a good idea to leave sub-projects to be named by their host sub-directories.

The default behavior is to assign the project name to the artifactId, so if you plan to publish the project with a Maven plugin, the name should be a valid Maven identifier ([A-Za-z0-9_\-.]+). Alternatively, the non-conforming project name can be kept, but artifactId must be overridden setting the "" property, or artifactId in the Maven publishing plugin configuration.

Group, groupId

The Gradle project group is equivalent with Maven groupId. The group may be set in the configuration phase, in the build configuration file, as shown below. It may not be set in the initialization phase in the settings configuration file, because ProjecteDescriptor does not expose a group.

project.group = 'io.example'

or

group = 'io.example'

For sub-project, the group that is not explicitly set defaults to the name of the parent and it can be set either in the sub-project's build.gradle as shown above, or in the root build.gradle as follows:

project(':subproject-A').group = "io.something"

If set in both places, the sub-project collocated build.gradle value takes precedence, as it is "closer" to the project.

If all sub-projects should inherit root's group, this can be set up in the root build.gradle as follows:

subprojects {
    group = rootProject.group;
 // group = parent.group;
}

Version

The version, equivalent to Maven's version may be set in the configuration phase, in the build configuration file, as shown below. It may not be set in the initialization phase in the settings configuration file, because ProjecteDescriptor does not expose a version.

project.version = '1.0'

or

version = '1.0'

For sub-project, the version is undefined if not explicitly set as shown below. There is no default, and no inheritance of the parent project version value. To set it, the sub-project's build.gradle as shown:

version = '2.0'

or

version = parent.version

Alternatively, the version can be set in the root build.gradle:

project(':subproject-A').version = '2.0'

or

project(':subproject-A').version = version

If set in both places, the sub-project collocated build.gradle value takes precedence, as it is "closer" to the project.

f all sub-projects should inherit root's version, this can be set up in the root build.gradle as follows:

subprojects {
    version = rootProject.version;
    // version = parent.version;
}

Other Project Properties

Project Properties

Top-Level Script Blocks

allprojects{}

Applies the given configuration closure, in order, to the current project and all of its sub-projects.

allprojects{...} usage examples

subprojects{}

Applies the given configuration closure, in order, to all sub-projects of the current project.

subprojects{...} usage examples

buildscript{}

Used to specify external plugins:

External Plugins

configurations{}

Configures the dependencies configurations of this project. More details available in:

Gradle Dependencies and Dependency Configurations

dependencies{}

Declare the dependencies of the project. For more details see:

Gradle Dependencies and Dependency Configurations

repositories{}

Used to declare and configure the repositories associated with this project. The repositories declared here will only be used to pull dependencies from, not publish against. For details on how to specify publishing repositories, see Gradle Artifact Publishing. This method executes the given configuration closure against the RepositoryHandler for this project, which is passed to the closure as the closure's delegate. More details on on repositories and how to configured them are available in:

Gradle Repositories

Project's Containers and Handlers

https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/#N10272

• Repository Handler
• Configuration Container
• Publishing extension:
  • Publications Container
  • Publishing Repository Container

Multi-Project Builds

Gradle Multi-Project Builds

Reacting to Build Lifecycle Events

A build lifecycle can be reacted to with code similar to the following examples.

More research necessary.

allprojects {
      afterEvaluate { project ->
          if (project.hasTests) {
              println "Adding test task to $project"
              project.task('test') {
                   doLast {
                         println "running tests for $project"
                   }
              }
          }
     }
}

gradle.afterProject {project, projectState ->
      if (projectState.failure) {
          println "Evaluation of $project FAILED"
      } 
      else {
          println "Evaluation of $project succeeded"
      }
}