The document presents a comprehensive guide on build automation with Gradle, discussing its advantages over other tools like Maven and Ant. It covers fundamental concepts, project setup, and practical examples such as creating a web application and an OSGi plugin. The importance of automating development tasks to enhance efficiency and enforce coding standards is emphasized throughout the presentation.

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Gradle Up!
René Winkelmeyer
midpoints GmbH

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René Winkelmeyer
Head of Development
midpoints GmbH
http://www.midpoints.de
IBM Advanced Business Partner
IBM Design Partner (Notes Domino, Mobile, Verse)
Apple Enterprise Developer und MDM Group Member
Samsung Enterprise Alliance Partner
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About me

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René Winkelmeyer
Head of Development

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Why this session?
Doing things for a first time?
Doing things for a second time?
Doing things more often?
Noteworthy:
http://www.slideshare.net/HollyCummins/confessions-of-an-automation-addict
Shoot and forget!
Write down the needed steps.
Automate!

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Tasks excerpt in software development and delivery
Compile binary code Set version number
Execute
integration tests
Generate JavaDoc
Resolve/update
dependencies
Modify
MANIFEST.MF
Deploy to QA system
Generate production
package
Compile binary code
Automated code
validation
Set binary file name
...
Debugging
Continous Integration
Deploy to different
platforms
Generate installers
Execute
regression tests
Include
documentation
Apply
translations
...
... ...
...
...

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Tasks excerpt in software development and delivery
Compile binary code Set version number
Execute
integration tests
Generate JavaDoc
Resolve/update
dependencies
Modify
MANIFEST.MF
Deploy to QA system
Generate production
package
Compile binary code
Automated code
validation
Set binary file name
...
Debugging
Continous Integration
Deploy to different
platforms
Generate installers
Execute
regression tests
Include
documentation
Apply
translations
...
... ...
...
...

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Example A – Resolve/update dependencies
§ You want to use a specific 3rd party library, i. e. for supporting MIME SMTP
Mailing (mail-1.3.4.jar)
Search, compile
and copy hell
mail-1.3.4
slf4j-3.1.1
commons-io-4.2.1
guava-17.1
log4j-2.3.4

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Example A – Resolve/update dependencies
§ The 3rd party library needs to be updated from mail-1.3.4.jar to mail-1.4.1.jar
Search, compile,
delete and copy hell
mail-1.4.1
slf4j-4.2.1 log4j-2.5.1
commons-io-4.4.5
guava-17.1
commons-
codec-2.1.3

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Example B – Automated code validation
§ Code validation can be done using 3rd party libraries/tools
§ FindBugs
§ CheckStyle
§ PMD
§ ...
Who executes them
– and when?
Where are they
executed? IDE?
Where are they
documented?

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Example C: Set version number
§ Define the version number so that it can be re-used
§ In the UI of your web application
§ In the file name of the compiled code
§ In the attached product documentation/help
§ In JavaDoc
§ ...
Where do you set it
nowadays?

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Example D: Generate production package
§ Generate a production ready package with the same servlet based application
(optionally including server configuration) for
§ Domino HTTP
§ WebSphere Liberty
§ TomEE
§ ...
Who maintains the
needed steps?

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Build automation – some PROs
§ Frees YOU from the hassle of repeating tasks
§ Makes SURE that you can concentrate on the essential part – coding
§ Helps to enforce STANDARDS across multiple developers and/or projects
§ Eases the MAINTAINABILITY of your applications
§ And much more!

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Automated Builds (here: Atlassian Bamboo)

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Build automation – It’s not for free!
§ Takes some time for adoption!
§ You‘ve to give up some (bad) habits.
§ Infrastructure needed (i. e. for automated testings).

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Please not the same discussion as with Windows vs. Linux
§ All widely accepted
§ Personal preferences may apply (like XML vs. custom DSL)
§ Make your choice!

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Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
Source:
http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-build-tools-part-2-a-decision-makers-comparison-of-maven-gradle-and-
ant-ivy/

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Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
convention-over-configuration
vs.
configuration-over-convention

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Example configuration (Maven vs. Gradle)
§ Comparing a simple build configuration for code testing purposes
§ Use JUnit and Hamcrest
§ Apply CheckStyle, FindBugs and PMD
Source:
http://technologyconversations.com/2014/06/18/build-tools/
Code:
https://github.com/vfarcic/JavaBuildTools

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Maven configuration (pom.xml)

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Gradle configuration (build.gradle)

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Basics – General
§ Gradle is built on top of Groovy – you „configure“ in code!
§ You don‘t have to learn Groovy in the first place when using Gradle.
§ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy_(programming_language)
§ Build scripts are using a custom DSL (Domain Specific Language)
§ https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/index.html

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Basics – DSL

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Basics – Releases and availability
§ New versions are delivered every 4-6 weeks
§ Current version is 2.7 (14.09.2015)
§ Release Notes: https://docs.gradle.org/2.7/release-notes
§ Download: https://gradle.org/gradle-download/

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Components
gradle
gradlew
Gradle daemon
build.gradle
settings.gradle
gradle.properties
Binaries Configuration

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Binaries
§ You can use either way the gradle executable of the binary package or the
gradle wrapper (gradlew).
§ The wrapper allows you to use Gradle on systems that don‘t have Gradle
installed (yet)
§ Enhance your build times by using the daemon
§ https://docs.gradle.org/2.7/userguide/gradle_daemon.html

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Configuration – Global
§ Custom global properties can be set via a gradle.properties file
§ Project build dir
§ Users gradle home dir (i. e. ~/.gradle/ on *nix systems)
§ Via System properties
§ Define proxy settings, passwords for remote repository access and much
more
§ https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/build_environment.html

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Configuration – Project specific
§ Gradle uses two build script files
§ build.gradle
§ settings.gradle
§ Minimum in the root of the project folder structure
§ Can have more of them in a multi-project structure

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Tasks
§ Gradle offers you a variety of built-in tasks.
§ Tasks can either run standalone – or they depend on the successful execution
of other tasks and run in a chain.
§ Configuration provided in the build.gradle file or via (custom) plugins.
§ You can write custom tasks directly in the build.gradle file.

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Task example – gradle init
§ Creates a new Gradle project according to the specified type (or a basic
Gradle project if no type is supplied)
Dedicated tasks
Different types for
init are available

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Task example – gradle tasks
§ Lists all tasks that are available to the current project
Name and description

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Tasks – gradle test
§ Runs the test cases of the project (if you test your code ;-))
Gradle stores
hash values of
task in- and output
and skips the
processing if no
changes haven
been made.

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IDE integration (here: Eclipse)
I recommend
this at the
moment
Relatively
new, needs
improvement

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Your first Gradle project – start small
§ We‘ll create a simple Java project here
§ Init a standalone project (non-Eclipse specific)
§ Learn about the project structure
§ Generate a runnable JAR file
§ Run the JAR file

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Init the project

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Learn about the project structure
build script
build script
Gradle wrapper files
Example source code

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Starting point for a build.gradle configuration
Standard and
custom
plugins are
available
jcenter references to Bintray, you can
also use i. e. mavenCentral,
mavenLocal and local directoreis
Define the needed dependencies that
are needed by this project.

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Assemble the JAR file
Gradle detects unavailable
dependencies and downloads them
automatically.

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Standard project structure
The build directory contains the
output of the Gradle build

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Run the assembled JAR file (or try to ;-))
The build/libs directory normally
contains the generated packages.

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Add your first additional plugin
Adding the „application“
plugin for getting a
runnable JAR file
New property that tells
the „application“ plugin
the name of the main
class.

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Validate the new tasks (added by the plugin)
New tasks

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Run the JAR file
Output of the sample code

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Create a distribution package for the JAR file
Task of the
„application“ plugin

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Validate the distribution package
installDist generates the fully
runnable distribution package

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Building a web application
§ We‘ll create a simple web application (with a single servlet) which will be used
from within the Eclipse IDE
§ Populate a blank build.gradle file with the needed settings
§ Use Maven Central as remote repository
§ Generate a WAR file
§ Run the WAR in a Jetty container

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Populate new build.gradle file
Code generation
should respect Java 8
Plugins that
help with
Eclipse
integration
Adds tasks
for WAR files

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Initialize Eclipse project
Preparing the Gradle
project for Eclipse

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Validate Eclipse data creation

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Import as “Gradle Project” 1/2

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Import as “Gradle Project” 2/2

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Create new Source Folders 1/2

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Create new Source Folders 1/2

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Create a simple servlet (or try to ;-))
HttpServlet isn‘t
available

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Repository and dependency configuration
Adding mavenCentral
as new remote repo
Adding the servlet
classes as new dep

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Refresh dependencies to download them (if needed)

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“Finish” the simple servlet

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Add web.xml configuration 1/3

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Add web.xml configuration 2/3

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Add web.xml configuration 3/3

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Need to run the WAR? Here we go!
Another plugin that allows
quick tests within a Jetty
container

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Quick start from within Eclipse
Use the Quick Launcher to run
the WAR in the Jetty container

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Using WebSphere Liberty? Lets ci.gradle help you!
https://github.com/WASdev/ci.gradle

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Agenda
§ Build Automation – Why?
§ Why Gradle - and not Maven or Ant?
§ Theory First - Gradle Basics
§ Your first Gradle project – start small
§ Building a web application
§ Building an OSGi plug-in project

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Building an OSGi plugin
§ Standard OSGi support in Gradle isn‘t very good
§ A simple plugin to help with OSGi-Manifest generation
§ https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/osgi_plugin.html
And now what?

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Wuff – to the rescue?
https://github.com/akhikhl/wuff

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Wuff – the solution?
§ Great for all Eclipse related build tasks.
§ Missing features – DIY
§ Feature generation
§ Updatesite creation

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Wuff – additional considerations (for Domino)

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Wuff – find the custom build here
§ https://github.com/petarov/wuff
Thanks to Petar, he did some of the dirty work

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Thank you!