Gradle is a build system written in Kotlin that can build and manage projects of any size. It is an open source project that is actively maintained by a community of developers.
There are many reasons to use Gradle as your build system. Gradle is designed to be flexible and extensible. It has a rich plugin ecosystem that allows you to add new functionality to your build. Gradle is also much faster than other build systems, such as Apache Maven.
To get started with Gradle, you need to create a build.gradle
file in the root directory of your project. This file defines the build configuration for your project.
apply plugin: 'java'
repositories {
jcenter()
}
dependencies {
compile group: 'org.apache.commons', name: 'commons-lang3', version: '3.5'
}
The apply plugin: 'java'
line applies the Java plugin to your project. This plugin adds support for compiling Java code and packaging it into JAR files.
The repositories
block defines where Gradle should look for dependencies. In this example, we are using the JCenter repository.
The dependencies
block defines the dependencies for our project. We are depending on the Apache Commons Lang library.
To build our project, we can run the gradle build
command. This will compile our Java code and package it into a JAR file. The JAR file will be placed in the build/libs
directory.
Gradle provides a wrapper that allows you to run Gradle without installing it on your system. The wrapper is a Gradle script that is packaged with your project. To use the wrapper, you need to add the following to your build.gradle
file:
apply plugin: 'java'
task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
gradleVersion = '2.9'
}
The wrapper
task will generate a Gradle wrapper script (gradlew
) and a properties file (gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties
). These files should be added to your version control system.
To build your project using the wrapper, you can run the gradlew build
command.
Gradle tasks are used to perform actions, such as compiling code, running tests, or packaging applications. Tasks have a name and a type. The name of a task is used to identify it and the type defines the actions that the task will perform.
In the following example, we have a task named compile
of type JavaCompile
. This task will compile the Java code in the src/main/java
directory.
task compile(type: JavaCompile) {
source = sourceSets.main.java
classpath = configurations.compile
}
Tasks can also depend on other tasks. In the following example, the compile
task depends on the classes
task. This means that the classes
task will be executed before the compile
task.
task compile(type: JavaCompile) {
dependsOn 'classes'
source = sourceSets.main.java
classpath = configurations.compile
}
Gradle plugins are used to extend the functionality of Gradle. There are many plugins available for different languages and tools. In the following example, we are using the java
plugin to add support for compiling Java code.
apply plugin: 'java'
repositories {
jcenter()
}
dependencies {
compile group: 'org.apache.commons', name: 'commons-lang3', version: '3.5'
}
To apply a plugin, we use the apply plugin: 'name'
syntax. In the example above, we are applying the java
plugin.
In this post, we have covered the basics of using Gradle to build and manage projects. Gradle is a powerful build system that is fast, flexible, and extensible. It has a rich plugin ecosystem that allows you to add new functionality to your build.