Gradle Java Plugin

Internal

• Gradle Concepts

Overview

The Java plugin adds tasks to your project which will compile and unit test your Java source code, and bundle it into a JAR file. The Java plugin is convention based. This means that the plugin defines default values for many aspects of the project, such as where the Java source files are located. If you follow the convention in your project, you generally don’t need to do much in your build script to get a useful build. To use it, build.gradle must include:

apply plugin: 'java'

This is all you need to define a Java project, provided that plugin's conventions are followed.

Plugin Conventions

The Java plugin expects to find the production source code under:

src/main/java

Tests are expected under:

src/test/java

All files under:

src/main/resources 

are considered resources and they will be include in the JAR, as resources.

The files available under:

src/test/resources

are considered test resources and will be included in the classpath used to run tests.

All output files are created under the:

build 

directory.

The JAR file is created in:

build/libs

Plugin Tasks

clean

Deletes the build directory, removing all built files.

assemble

Compiles code and builds the JAR but does not run tests. Other plugins, such as War, add more artifacts to this task.