A few helpful links and details to where information is on the Gradle Build Tool.
Installation
Via SDKMAN sdk install gradle x.y.z
where x.y.z is the version, like 8.0.2.
Via Brew with brew install gradle
.
Manually check out the instructions here.
Building a Java Library (or application, Gradle plugin, etc)
Using the init task. From inside a directory with the pertinent project.
gradle init
You’ll be prompted for options.

With the project initialized this is what that initialized folder structure looks like.

At this point add the Java code for the library, similar to this example, and execute a build like this.
./gradlew build
Build Collateral
View the test report via the HTML output file at lib/build/reports/tests/test/index.htm
l.
The JAR file is available in lib/build/libs
with the name lib.jar
. Verify the archive is valid with jar tf lib/build/libs/lib.jar
.
Add the version by setting the version = '0.1.1'
in the build.gradle
file.
Run the jar task ./gradlew jar
and the build will create a lib/build/libs/lib-0.1.1.jar
with the expected version.
Add all this to the build by adding the following to the build.gradle
file:
tasks.named('jar') {
manifest {
attributes('Implementation-Title': project.name,
'Implementation-Version': project.version)
}
}
Verifying this all works, execute a ./gradlew jar
and then extract the MANIFEST.MF via jar xf lib/build/libs/lib-0.1.0.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
.
Adding API Docs
In the */Library.java file, replace the / in the comment by / * so that we get javadoc markup.
Run the ./gradlew javadoc
task. The generated javadoc files are located at lib/build/docs/javadoc/index.html
.
To add this as a build task, in build.gradle
add a section with the following:
java {
withJavadocJar()
}
Publish a Build Scan
Execute a build scan with ./gradlew build --scan
.
Common Issues + Tips n’ Tricks
gradlew – Permission Denied issue
Let’s say you execute Gradle with ./gradlew
with whatever parameter and immediately get a response of “Permission Denied”. The most common solution, especially for included gradlew
executables included in repositories, is to just give the executable permission to execute. This is done with a simple addition chmod +x gradelw
and you should now be ready to execute!
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