How to bring all dependencies jars with Gradle? - java

I have simple java (Gradle) project wich depends on several JARs, obtained automatically from Maven repositories.
Now I wish to call my jar with external application (Matlab). Unfortunately, application does not see any dependencies after I call build, jar and similar goals.
Me myself also don't know dependencies, since they are managed automatically with Gradle and may contain nested dependencies, not listed in build.gradle.
Is it possible to collect all required JARs in one place to run them freely?

You can write a custom task to collect your runtime dependencies into a jar
task copyToLib(type: Copy) {
into "$buildDir/libs"
from configurations.runtime
}
You could also look into the application and distribution gradle plugins, that provide similar packaging and distribution functionality

Related

Build JAR with a dependency from the custom repository

I'm trying to build a JAR artifact which requires a custom dependency from the bintray repository, like:
https://dl.bintray.com/foo/bar
Is it possible to instruct the project that consumes such a library that it should resolve dependencies in the extra repository?
Or should I take another approach to provide it?
TL;DR
Build a fat jar including your dependencies.
Long Version
Yes, it is potentially possible to instruct a project that consumes your Gradle plugin to download plugin dependencies from a non-default repository. But it requires the user intervention which is probably not what you want to hear.
The following settings.gradle should retrieve your plugin from the Gradle Plugin Portal and resolve the dependencies from your Bintray repository:
pluginManagement {
repositories {
maven {
url 'https://dl.bintray.com/foo/bar'
}
gradlePluginPortal()
}
}
This is documented under Plugin Management.
Please note that I'm a bit vague in my answer since I never did something similar. What I can tell is that the spring-cloud-contract plugin does exactly this for snapshot versions.
IMHO, in your specific case, you get the best user experience by building a fat jar that includes your dependencies. A remarkable companion being the Gradle Shadow Plugin. It also features additional functionality for Gradle plugins, should you ever need them.

Can a Gradle project rebuild its dependencies, track their source changes etc.?

I am used to specifying project dependencies in ant/Netbeans, where a project recompiles if its dependency (another, otherwise separate project) changes, "clean and build" cleans and rebuilds dependencies etc. There is also source code navigation, where Netbeans switches seamlessly between projects.
Now I want to learn Gradle, but I was told that I should use a repository for accessing dependencies, like Maven Central. Project dependency configuration in Netbeans UI, in case of a Gradle project, is gone. Thus the question: is the aforementioned possibility of a deep integration between a project and its dependencies possible in a Gradle project?
For your project's source, meaning the stuff under the typical src/main/java, Gradle will "cache" this out of the box for most built-in tasks.
In Gradle, this is known as Up-to-date checks (AKA Incremental Build):
Once your source files have been compiled, there should be no need to recompile them unless something has changed that affects the output, such as the modification of a source file or the removal of an output file.
If you have a custom build task defined or a task that requires to be incremental (cached), then you'll need to follow this to make your custom task incremental.
And for the following:
"clean and build" cleans and rebuilds dependencies etc.
Gradle does not "build" dependencies. It will retrieve dependencies from the configured repositories in the project and then cache them.
You can configure the build cache if needed to suite your needs: https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/build_cache.html#sec:build_cache_configure

Gradle Plugin dependency

What is the exact dependency I need to develop a Gradle Plugin in Java? Ideally I would like to get it from a well-known repository such as Maven Central or similar.
I have a Maven project with a core functionality and I just added two extra plugins, one for Ant, one for Maven. They are already tested and working; easy! Now, I wanted to add a third module for a Gradle plugin to make this functionality also available from any Gradle project.
However, I can't find the exact dependencies I need to develop a Gradle plugin.
The Gradle docs (such as https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/java_gradle_plugin.html) are not very well written to say the least. They mention:
the gradleAPI() dependency
or the java-gradle-plugin dependency
But they are quite unclear... no group, no version (really?).
If anyone can enlighten me to where I can get these dependencies from, I would be very thankful.
Gradle's public and internal APIs, aka gradleApi(), are bundled with the Gradle distribution and not independently published and therefore not easily consumable by Maven builds. There's the pending epic #1156 (Ensure plugin cross-version compatibility by allowing a user to depend on gradlePublicApi()) that might help here.
Since Gradle plugins are best to be built with Gradle, a pragmatic solution is to invoke the Gradle build from Maven and attach the produced artifact to the Maven build. Andres Almiray (aalmiray) once described this in the blog post Running Gradle Inside Maven (Web Archive Link). He describes the following high level steps:
Create a new Maven module (e.g. gradle-plugin) and add attach it to the parent POM
In the POM of gradle-plugin add a dependency to your core module. Use the maven-dependency-plugin to store dependencies to the Maven build folder, e.g. target/dependencies.
Create the build.gradle, add a Maven repository that points to target/dependencies (step 2) and let it depend on the core module as well as gradleApi(). Implement the Gradle plugin.
Use the exec-maven-plugin to invoke the Gradle build.
Use the maven-resources-plugin to copy the Gradle built plugin jars to the standard Maven build folder.
Use the build-helper-maven-plugin to attach the copied jars to the Maven build.
Sample project to be found here (gradle-in-maven).
https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/custom_plugins.html#sec:custom_plugins_standalone_project
In here it is mentioned that it is gradleApi() and I know that this works (from experience). The localGroovy() on that page is only needed if your plugin code uses groovy (does not apply if you only use groovy in the build.gradle of your plugin).
java-gradle-plugin is a library that makes it a bit simpler to make plugins, it is not required though. I personally prefer using gradleApi only.
EDIT:
It appears I've misunderstood the question. Here are the steps to get gradleApi jar:
Create a Gradle project with your desired Gradle version.
Add implementation gradleApi() dependency.
Import/run the project once.
Go to your .gradle folder (located in home folder in Linux-based operating systems).
Open caches folder
Open the version folder you want, e.g. 6.0.1
Open generated-gradle-jars folder.
Copy the jar to wherever you want and use it.
For me the 6.0.1 jar is at ~/.gradle/caches/6.0.1/generated-gradle-jars/gradle-api-6.0.1.jar
Please note that I have not tested this, I know the jar is there but I haven't tried using it.

Installing a framework without maven or gradle

I try to install Javalin framework for creating an API on my Java project. (old java 8 project without maven, gradle, etc). I would like to install the framework with adding the jars to my build path.
But If I add the main jar file then it needs another dependencies jar , then another one another one another one.. etc.
Is there any simple way to add this to my project and all it's dependencies without any build tool like Maven,etc?
I have tried adding it manually , but each jar has many dependencies that it is almost impossible(?)
Well you could create a Maven project and use it to download the dependencies for you.
Maven dependency plugin might be useful. With it you could just call:
mvn dependency:copy-dependencies
and it will download all your dependencies into target/dependency.
I don't think there's a way, I'm afraid.  Dependency management is the exact problem that build tools like Maven and Gradle were created to solve!
The framework supplier could provide a ‘fat’ jar including all the dependencies; but I'm not aware of any that do, as everyone uses Maven or Gradle (or SBT or Ivy or Grape or Leiningen or Buildr).
I think the only real alternative is to do it manually — which, as you've discovered, can be a horrible and lengthy task if the dependency tree is big.  (And would need redoing with every update.)
So I'd suggest biting the bullet and using Maven if you can.

gradle depedencies and cache

I have a simple testing-purpose gradle project, which I want to scan its dependencies using gradle dependencies command. Before I do so I want to make sure that the project's dependencies are actually found in the gradle's cache (.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2/1). To do so I run the gradle assemble command to download the missing dependencies before scanning.
I found out that its working only if the project has a src/main/java folder with a Java file inside it (even if that Java file is completely empty).
Is this a valid workaround? Is there any better solution to guarantee the dependencies are found in the cache folder before scanning them?
What is the reason that you want to do that?
assemble task assemble your source files, if there is nothing to assemble the task is not needed to run. The fact you are adding the java file to src its a hack to run this task and its children tasks.
Depending on what you want to achieve there are few ways to 'scan' dependencies.
For more info you can visit https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/userguide_single.html#sec:listing_dependencies
Aditionally:
There is a netflix plugin that I believe can scan through your gradle scripts a check unused dependencies https://github.com/nebula-plugins/gradle-lint-plugin
There is a plugin that can scan the vulnerabilities of used dependencies etc https://jeremylong.github.io/DependencyCheck/dependency-check-gradle/

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