Gradle Builds with Groovy

Gradle is a powerful build automation tool that uses Groovy as its DSL (Domain Specific Language) for build scripts, combining the flexibility of scripting with the power of a build tool.

Why Gradle?

Declarative builds with Groovy DSL
Incremental builds for better performance
Rich dependency management
Extensible with custom tasks and plugins
Supports multi-project builds

Basic Gradle Build Script

// build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'java'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.12.0'
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.13.2'
}

task hello {
    doLast {
        println 'Hello, Gradle!'
    }
}

Gradle Wrapper

The recommended way to execute Gradle builds is via the wrapper:

# Initialize wrapper
gradle wrapper --gradle-version 7.4

# Use wrapper (Windows)
gradlew.bat build

# Use wrapper (Unix/macOS)
./gradlew build

Common Gradle Tasks

Task	Description
clean	Deletes the build directory
build	Assembles and tests the project
assemble	Compiles code and builds artifacts
test	Runs unit tests
run	Runs the application

Custom Tasks

task copyReports(type: Copy) {
    from 'reports'
    into 'archive'
    include '*.pdf'
    
    doLast {
        println "Copied PDF reports to archive"
    }
}

Dependency Management

dependencies {
    // Module dependency
    implementation 'com.google.guava:guava:31.0.1-jre'
    
    // Project dependency
    implementation project(':shared')
    
    // File dependency
    implementation files('libs/local.jar')
    
    // Gradle version catalog (in settings.gradle)
    implementation libs.guava
}

Multi-project Builds

settings.gradle:

rootProject.name = 'myapp'
include 'core', 'web', 'services'

Groovy DSL Features

Closures for configuration blocks
Operator overloading for dependencies
Dynamic properties and methods
Groovy collections and iteration

Integrating with Groovy Projects

plugins {
    id 'groovy'
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:3.0.9'
    testImplementation 'org.spockframework:spock-core:2.0-groovy-3.0'
}

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