First Gradle Project

This is just a super simple project to show some of the absolute basics of gradle. This project was generated by running gradle init followed by selecting basic, Groovy, and the default project name.

The command gradle init is used to initialize the folder I am currently in as a gradle project. This command will prompt you for various options to describe what kind of project you are working on. Based on what you answer determines what gradle files and configs will be added to your current folder. Run tree to see the directory structure after running gradle init with the above inputs:

tree .

Outputs:

.
├── build.gradle
├── gradle
│   └── wrapper
│       ├── gradle-wrapper.jar
│       └── gradle-wrapper.properties
├── gradlew
├── gradlew.bat
├── README.org
└── settings.gradle

2 directories, 7 files

One of the files worth noting is the gradlew script. This is a script that is generated by gradle init to allow anyone to run our gradle tasks and build instructions without even needing to have gradle installed. Lets look at the build.gradle file:

cat build.gradle

Outputs:

/*
 * This file was generated by the Gradle 'init' task.
 *
 * This is a general purpose Gradle build.
 * Learn more about Gradle by exploring our samples at https://docs.gradle.org/7.0.2/samples
 */

task firstTask {
    println 'Gradle Rocks!!'
}

This task can be viewed by running: gradle tasks --all and can be run with: gradle firstTask. One of the quirks about gradle that is important to note is that the task can also be run with: gradle fT. This is why it is the task name is written with camel casing.