The document provides an introduction to Gradle, an open source build automation tool. It discusses that Gradle is a general purpose build system with a rich build description language based on Groovy. It supports "build-by-convention" and is flexible and extensible, with built-in plugins for Java, Groovy, Scala, web and OSGi. The presentation covers Gradle's basic features, principles, files and collections, dependencies, multi-project builds, plugins and reading materials.

1. Introduction to Gradle
Andrey Adamovich
Aestas/IT

2. What is Gradle?
 Gradle is a general purpose build system
 It comes with a rich build description
language (DSL) based on Groovy
 It supports ”build-by-convention” principle
 But it is very flexible and extensible
 It has built-in plug-ins for Java, Groovy,
Scala, Web, OSGi
 It derives all the best and integrates well
with Ivy, Ant and Maven

3. What’s in this presentation?
 Overview
 Basic features & principles
 Files and file collections
 Dependencies
 Multiple projects
 Plug-ins
 Reading material
 Questions

4. OVERVIEW

5. Gradle features I
 Declarative builds and build-by-
convention
 Language for dependency based
programming and many ways to
manage dependencies
 Groovy as a base language allows
imperative programming

6. Gradle features II
 Deep and rich API for managing
projects, tasks, dependency
artefacts and much more.
 State of the art support for multi-
project builds
 Ease of integration and migration.
Ant, Maven, Ivy are supported out-
of-the-box
 Free and open source

7. Advanced features
 Parallel unit test execution
 Dependency build
 Incremental build support
 Dynamic tasks and task rules
 Gradle daemon

8. Who uses Gradle?
 Hibernate  Canoo
 Grails  Carrier
 Groovy  FCC
 Spring Integration  Zeppelin
 Spring Security  GPars
 Griffon  Spock
 Gaelyk  Aluminum
 Qi4j  Gant

9. BASIC FEATURES &
PRINCIPLES

10. Hello, Gradle!
build.gradle:
task hello << {
println ’Hello, World'
} >gradle hello
:hello
Hello, World!
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2.401 secs
build.gradle:
task hello << {
print ’Hello, '
}
task world(dependsOn: hello) << {
println ’World!'
} >gradle -q hello world
Hello, World!
>gradle -q world
Hello, World!

11. Task configuration & execution
task hello
message = "What's up?"
hello {
println "Configuring hello task."
message = 'Hello, World!'
}
hello << {
println message
>gradle hello
} Configuring hello task.
:hello
Hello, World!
hello << { What's up?
println project.message
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
}
Total time: 1.958 secs

12. Gradle is Groovy, Groovy is Java
Java:
import java.io.File;
…
String parentDir = new File(”test.txt”)
.getAbsoluteFile()
.getParentPath();
Groovy:
def parentDir = new File(”test.txt”).absoluteFile.parentPath
Gradle:
parentDir = file(”test.txt”).absoluteFile.parentPath

13. Building Java project
apply plugin: 'java'
>gradle clean build
:clean
:compileJava
:processResources UP-TO-DATE
:classes
:jar
:assemble
:compileTestJava UP-TO-DATE
:processTestResources UP-TO-DATE
:testClasses UP-TO-DATE
:test
:check
:build
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 7.6 secs

14. Java plug-in tasks
compileJava processResources clean
classes javadoc
compileTestJava processTestResources jar
testClasses
test uploadArchives
check assemble
build

15. Extending tasks
test {
systemProperties ("net.sourceforge.cobertura.datafile": cobSerFile)
cobSerFile = "${project.buildDir}/cobertura.ser"
}
test.doFirst {
ant {
delete(file: cobSerFile, failonerror: false)
'cobertura-instrument'(datafile: cobSerFile) {
fileset(dir: "${sourceSets.main.classesDir}", includes: "**/*.class") }
}
}
}
test.doLast {
ant.'cobertura-report'(
destdir: "${project.buildDirName}/test-results",
format: 'xml',
srcdir: "src/main/java",
datafile: cobSerFile)
}

16. Ant is a first-class citizen
 All Ant tasks and types can be used
inside Gradle script using Groovy
syntax
 Whole Ant build script can be
imported into Gradle and its targets
can be called

17. Ant usage examples I
task hello << {
String greeting = "hello from Ant"
ant.echo(message: greeting)
}
task list << {
def path = ant.path {
fileset(dir: 'libs', includes: '*.jar')
}
path.list().each {
println it
}
}
task zip << {
ant.zip(destfile: 'archive.zip') {
fileset(dir: 'src') {
include(name: '**.xml')
exclude(name: '**.java')
}
}
}

18. Ant usage examples II
ant.taskdef(resource: 'checkstyletask.properties') {
classpath {
fileset(dir: 'libs/checkstyle', includes: '*.jar')
}
}
ant.checkstyle(config: 'src/tools/sun_checks.xml') {
fileset(dir: 'src')
}
<project>
<target name="hello">
<echo>Hello, from Ant</echo>
</target>
</project> >gradle hello
:hello
[ant:echo] Hello, from Ant
ant.importBuild 'build.xml' BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 7.898 secs

19. Overriding conventions
version = 1.0
group = ’org.gradletutorials’
version = "1.0-${new Date().format('yyyyMMdd')}"
task release(dependsOn: assemble) << {
println 'We release now'
}
build.taskGraph.whenReady { taskGraph ->
if (taskGraph.hasTask(':release')) {
version = '1.0’
} else {
version = '1.0-SNAPSHOT’
}
}
sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs += ["src/generated/java"]
sourceSets.main.resources.srcDirs += ["src/generated/resources"]

20. More examples
 Many source directory sets per
project without a need of a plug-in
 Different dependencies per source
directory
 Even different JDK per source
directory
 Many artifacts per project

21. FILES AND FILE
COLLECTIONS

22. Referencing files & file collections
Groovy-like syntax:
// Using a relative path
File configFile = file('src/config.xml')
Create a file collection from a bunch of files:
FileCollection collection = files(
'src/file1.txt',
new File('src/file2.txt'),
['src/file3.txt', 'src/file4.txt'])
Create a files collection by referencing project properties:
collection = files { srcDir.listFiles() }
Operations on collections:
def union = collection + files('src/file4.txt')
def different = collection - files('src/file3.txt')}

23. Using file collections as input
Many objects in Gradle have properties, which accept a set of
input files. For example, the compile task has a source property,
which defines the source files to compile. You can set the value
of this property using any of the types supported by the files()
method:
// Use a File object to specify the source directory.
compile {
source = file('src/main/java')
}
// Using a closure to specify the source files.
compile {
source = {
// Use the contents of each zip file in the src dir.
file('src')
.listFiles()
.findAll { it.name.endsWith('.zip') }
.collect { zipTree(it) }
}
}
}1

24. Copying files
Using Ant integration:
ant.copy(todir: 'javadoc') {
fileset(dir: 'build/docs')
}
Using Gradle task type:
task copyTask(type: Copy) {
from 'src/main/webapp‘
into 'build/explodedWar‘
include '**/*.jsp‘
exclude { details ->
details.file.name.endsWith('.html') &&
details.file.text.contains('staging')
}
}

25. DEPENDENCY
MANAGEMENT

26. Repository configuration
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
repositories {
mavenCentral name: 'single-jar-repo', urls: "http://repo.mycompany.com/jars"
mavenCentral name: 'multi-jar-repos', urls:
["http://repo.mycompany.com/jars1", "http://repo.mycompany.com/jars1"]
}
repositories {
flatDir name: 'localRepository',
dirs: 'lib' flatDir dirs: ['lib1', 'lib2']
}
repositories {
add(new org.apache.ivy.plugins.resolver.FileSystemResolver()) {
name = 'localRepository'
latestStrategy = new org.apache.ivy.plugins.latest.LatestTimeStrategy()
addArtifactPattern(libDir +
'/[organization]/[artifact]/[ext]s/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]')
}
}

27. Referencing dependencies
dependencies {
runtime files('libs/a.jar', 'libs/b.jar')
runtime fileTree(dir: 'libs', includes: ['*.jar'])
}
dependencies {
compile 'org.springframework:spring-webmvc:3.0.0.RELEASE'
testCompile 'org.springframework:spring-test:3.0.0.RELEASE'
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.7'
}
dependencies {
runtime group: 'org.springframework', name: 'spring-core', version: '2.5'
runtime 'org.springframework:spring-core:2.5',
'org.springframework:spring-aop:2.5
}
List groovy = ["org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:1.5.4@jar",
"commons-cli:commons-cli:1.0@jar",
"org.apache.ant:ant:1.7.0@jar"]
List hibernate = ['org.hibernate:hibernate:3.0.5@jar',
'somegroup:someorg:1.0@jar']
dependencies {
runtime groovy, hibernate
}

28. Transitive dependencies
configurations.compile.transitive = true
dependencies {
compile 'org.springframework:spring-webmvc:3.0.0.RC2'
runtime 'org.hibernate:hibernate:3.0.5'
}
dependencies {
compile 'org.springframework:spring-webmvc:3.0.0.RC2'
runtime('org.hibernate:hibernate:3.0.5') {
transitive = true
}
}

29. MULTI-PROJECT BUILDS

30. Directories & settings.gradle
settings.gradle:
include 'shared', 'api', ':service:service1', ':service:service2'
 You can have only one build file
for the whole multi-project build
 All properties, settings, plug-ins,
dependencies are derived without
a need to duplicate information
 You can override almost all
behaviour in child builds

31. All or something
allprojects {
task build << {
println "Building project: " + project.name
}
} >gradle build
:build
subprojects { Building project: 90-multi-project
task prebuild << { :api:prebuild
println "It is subproject!" It is subproject!
:api:build
} Building project: api
build.dependsOn prebuild :service:prebuild
} It is subproject!
:service:build
Building project: service
:shared:prebuild
It is subproject!
:shared:build
Building project: shared
:service:service1:prebuild
It is subproject!
:service:service1:build
Building project: service1
:service:service2:prebuild
It is subproject!
:service:service2:build
Building project: service2
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 9.684 secs

32. Inter-project dependencies
subprojects {
apply plugin: 'java'
if (project.name.matches('^.*serviced+$')) {
dependencies {
>gradle clean build
compile project(':api')
:api:clean
compile project(':shared') :service:clean
} :shared:clean
} :service:service1:clean
:service:service2:clean
} :service:service1:compileJava
:shared:compileJava UP-TO-DATE :service:service1:processResources UP-TO-DATE
:shared:processResources UP-TO-DATE :service:service1:classes
project(':api') { :shared:classes UP-TO-DATE :service:service1:jar
dependencies { :shared:jar :service:service1:assemble
:api:compileJava
compile project(':shared') :service:service1:compileTestJava
:api:processResources UP-TO-DATE :service:service1:processTestResources UP-TO-
} :api:classes DATE
} :api:jar :service:service1:testClasses
:api:assemble :service:service1:test
:api:compileTestJava
dependsOnChildren() :service:service1:check
:api:processTestResources UP-TO-DATE:service:service1:build
:api:testClasses :service:service2:compileJava
:api:test :service:service2:processResources UP-TO-DATE
:api:check :service:service2:classes
:api:build :service:service2:jar
:service:compileJava UP-TO-DATE :service:service2:assemble
:service:processResources UP-TO-DATE:service:service2:compileTestJava
:service:classes UP-TO-DATE :service:service2:processTestResources UP-TO-
:service:jar DATE
:service:assemble :service:service2:testClasses
:service:compileTestJava UP-TO-DATE :service:service2:test
:service:processTestResources UP-TO-DATE
:service:service2:check
:service:testClasses UP-TO-DATE :service:service2:build
:service:test UP-TO-DATE
:service:check UP-TO-DATE BUILD SUCCESSFUL
:service:build
:shared:assemble Total time: 3.75 secs
:shared:compileTestJava UP-TO-DATE
:shared:processTestResources UP-TO-DATE
:shared:testClasses UP-TO-DATE
:shared:test UP-TO-DATE
:shared:check UP-TO-DATE
:shared:build

33. PLUGINS

34. Extending your build
Any Gradle script can be a plug-in:
apply from: 'otherScript.gradle'
apply from: 'http://mycomp.com/otherScript.gradle'
Use many of the standard or 3rd-party plug-ins:
apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'scala'
apply plugin: 'war'
Configuration objects can be externalized:
task configure << {
pos = new java.text.FieldPosition(10)
// Apply the script.
apply from: 'position.gradle', to: pos
println pos.beginIndex
println pos.endIndex
position.gradle:
}
beginIndex = 1;
endIndex = 5;

35. Standard plug-ins
Plug-in ID Plug-in ID
base application (java, groovy)
java-base jetty (war)
groovy-base maven (java, war)
scala-base osgi (java-base, java)
reporting-base war (java)
java (java-base) code-quality (reporting-base, java,
groovy)
groovy (java, groovy-base) eclipse (java, groovy, scala, war)
scala (java, scala-base) idea (java)
antlr (java) project-report (reporting-base)
announce sonar

36. READING MATERIAL

37. Resources
 http://www.gradle.org
◦ /tutorials
◦ /current/docs/userguide/userguide.html
◦ /current/docs/dsl/index.html
 http://groovy.codehaus.org
◦ /gapi/
◦ /groovy-jdk/
◦ /User+Guide
 http://ant.apache.org/manual

38. Literature
“Build and test software written in Java and
many other languages with Gradle, the open
source project automation tool that’s getting
a lot of attention. This concise introduction
provides numerous code examples to help
you explore Gradle, both as a build tool and
as a complete solution for automating the
compilation, test, and release process of
simple and enterprise-level applications .”
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920019909.do

39. QUESTIONS?