Gradle Beyond the Basics

Book excerpt: If you’re familiar with Gradle’s basics elements—possibly through the author’s previous O’Reilly book, Building and Testing with Gradle—this more advanced guide provides the recipes, techniques, and syntax to help you master this build automation tool. With clear, concise explanations and lots of ready-to-use code examples, you’ll explore four discrete areas of Gradle functionality: file operations, custom Gradle plugins, build lifecycle hooks, and dependency management. Learn how to use Gradle’s rich set of APIs and Groovy-based Domain Specific Language to customize build software that actually conforms to your product. By using the techniques in this book, you’ll be able to write domain-specific builds that support every other line of code your team creates. Examine Gradle’s file API, including copy tasks, pattern matching, content filtering, and the FileCollection interface Understand the process for building and packaging a custom Gradle plug-in Manage build complexity with hook methods and Gradle’s rule feature Learn how Gradle handles dependency management natively and through customization Explore Gradle’s core plug-ins as well as key examples from the Gradle community