gradle generated file from a task not available in final jar - gradle

Question

I have set up some tasks compiling a libGdx project in Android Studio. What I want is, that a dynamic file "version.txt" is created in the assets folder. This file must be available in the final jar-output.
Here is how I did the setup:
libGdx provides me with a dist task.
I created two tasks on top of that: buildDebugVersion and buildReleaseVersion.
Both shall create a version.txt, one containing debug information and the other no debug info.
libGdx' original dist task
task dist(type: Jar) {
manifest {
attributes 'Main-Class': project.mainClassName
}
//processResources.dependsOn tasks.updateVersionFileRelease
dependsOn configurations.runtimeClasspath
from {
configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) }
}
with jar
}
my debug/release tasks
task createDebugVersion {
outputs.upToDateWhen { false }
doFirst {
modifyVersionFile(1)
}
}
task createReleaseVersion {
outputs.upToDateWhen { false }
doFirst {
modifyVersionFile(0)
}
}
task dependencies
To put that all in the right running order, I created
createDebugVersion.finalizedBy(tasks.dist)
createReleaseVersion.finalizedBy(tasks.dist)
dist.mustRunAfter(tasks.createDebugVersion, tasks.createReleaseVersion)
My expectation was:
createdebug/release runs and creates the file
THEN dist runs
This seems to happen, when I look at the output. You can see, what file is generated:
Here is the output when I run it:
> Task :desktop:createReleaseVersion
Generated version file is:
--------------------------
Version=0.1.113
BuildDate=2020-04-24
--------------------------
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 5s
10 actionable tasks: 9 executed, 1 up-to-date
...but when I run the program, I see this version information:
The file contained in the jar is alway 1 or 2 versions behind, as if it would've been taken out of some cache folder.
What scares me is the question: How many of the other assets are now 1 or 2 versions behind, too?
From where does gradle take this file?
I was not able to find it out so far.
what I already tried
I run this through a .cmd script. Before starting the gradle task, I already delete all build folders (and tested it, everything is removed before the build starts)
(the variable %TASK% contains either createDebugVersion or createReleaseVersion)
ECHO Forcing resources rebuild
RD /S /Q .\desktop\build
RD /S /Q .\android\build
ECHO Compiling distribution version of %GAMENAME%...
CALL gradlew desktop:clean desktop:build %TASK% --rerun-tasks
But still, out of some "ghost-galaxy-space", a file that is two builds old is taken from somewhere and put into the jar...
Any help greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Ok, I figured it out - maybe it helps others if they run into a similar issue.
The error was here:
CALL gradlew desktop:clean desktop:build %TASK% --rerun-tasks
If you look closely, you see FIRST desktop:clean runs, THEN desktop:build runs, which causes a full-rebuild due to the deleted caches and build folders, and THEN my %TASK% runs - as third in order!
So, my task runs after the build. Even when I put up the build chain with
createDebugVersion.finalizedBy(tasks.dist)
createReleaseVersion.finalizedBy(tasks.dist)
this all only runs after the build is already done. And the dist task has no clean in this build chain so it uses the output of the build generated by the second parameter of my gradlew call!
The solution
I simply changed how I run gradlew:
my command script now calls
call gradlew desktop:clean %TASK% --rerun-tasks
so a clean is still forced, but the build only happens as a reaction from dist because it can't find any binaries, so it has to build them right now.
And then the build finally runs after my file has been written to the assets folder.
Hope this helps someone some day!
cheers, gris