Gradle in Action

Key Lessons

Build tool creates a DAG of the tasks and its dependencies.

Gradle

• DSL in Groovy
• JVM native
• Each element in a Gradle script has a one-to-one representation with a Java class

Useful Commands

• gradle tasks --all
• gradle properties

Gradle Daemon

Fork of the Gradle process in the background to reuse the previous process

Plugins

• java—for finding the Java classes and configuring smart defaults
• application—tasks for simplifying running the app and bundling

Gradle Wrapper

Works to have the same versions of Gradle on the machine.

Main Things in Gradle

• Projects
• Tasks
• Properties

Gradle Lifecycle Phases

• Initialization—creating a project instance for the project
• Configuration—constructing a model representation of the tasks that will take part in the build
  • All tasks are checked
  • Task inputs and outputs are evaluated to wire up the task dependencies
• Execution—tasks are executed in the correct order (determined by the dependencies)

Gradle Hooks

• Before and after different phases (configuration, execution, etc.)

Additional Commands

• gradle dependencyInsight

Settings File

• Declares configuration required for instantiating project hierarchy

Project Configuration

• allprojects—common behavior for all (including root)
• subprojects—only subprojects