Migrating from ant to gradle - gradle

Question

Build.xml
<project name="DikshaPortal" default="dist" basedir=".">
<description>Build file for Portalv2.0 project</description>
<!-- set global properties for this build -->
<property name="src" location="src" />
<property name="conf" location="src/conf" />
<property name="build" location="${BUILD_TARGET}/Portal" />
<property name="GUI" location="../GUI" />
<property name="dist" location="${BUILD_EXPORT}/Portal" />
<property name="BaseDir" location="../DikshaPortal-Release-2013-12-12" />
<property name="UIBaseDir" location="../Portalv2.0_FlexCompileFiles" />
<property name="history" location="${UIBaseDir}/history" />
<property name="META-INF" location="WebContent/META-INF" />
<property name="com" location="${UIBaseDir}/com" />
<property name="pages" location="${UIBaseDir}/pages" />
<property name="WEB-INF" location="WebContent/WEB-INF" />
<property name="data" location="WebContent/data" />
<property name="temp" location="WebContent/temp" />
<property name="policies" location="WebContent/assets/images/Policies" />
<property name="TPL" value="${LIBRARIES}/ThirdParty" />
<property name="apache" value="${TPL}/apache_libs" />
<path id="classpath">
<fileset dir="${TPL}" includes="*.jar" />
<fileset dir="${apache}" includes="**/*.jar" />
<fileset dir="${WEB-INF}" includes="**/*.jar" />
</path>
<target name="clean" description="Removes the temporary directories used">
<delete dir="${GUI}" />
<delete dir="${build}" />
</target>
<target name="init" depends="clean">
<!-- Create the time stamp -->
<tstamp />
<!-- Create the build directory structure used by compile -->
<mkdir dir="${build}" />
<mkdir dir="${dist}" />
<mkdir dir="${GUI}" />
<mkdir dir="${data}" />
<mkdir dir="${temp}" />
</target>
<target name="compile" depends="init" description="Compile the source code">
<!-- Compile the java code from ${src} into ${build} -->
<javac srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build}" debug="on" debuglevel="lines,vars,source" classpathref="classpath" />
</target>
<target name="dist" depends="compile" description="generate the distribution">
<copy todir="${GUI}">
<fileset dir="${UIBaseDir}" includes="*.js,*.html,*.swf,*.jsp,favicon.png,favicon.ico" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/assets/images/Policies" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/assets/images/Policies">
<fileset dir="${policies}" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/data" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/data">
<fileset dir="${data}" includes="**" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/temp" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/temp">
<fileset dir="${temp}" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/history" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/history">
<fileset dir="${history}" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/com" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/com">
<fileset dir="${com}" includes="**" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/pages" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/pages">
<fileset dir="${pages}" includes="**" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/WEB-INF/flex" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/WEB-INF/flex">
<fileset dir="${WEB-INF}/flex" includes="*.*">
</fileset>
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${GUI}/WEB-INF/pages" />
<copy todir="${GUI}/WEB-INF/pages">
<fileset dir="${WEB-INF}/pages" includes="*.*">
</fileset>
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${dist}/conf" />
<copy todir="${dist}/conf">
<fileset dir="${BaseDir}/conf" includes="email.properties, Portal.properties" />
</copy>
<copy todir="${dist}">
<fileset dir="${BaseDir}/conf" includes="readme.txt" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${dist}/email/templates" />
<copy todir="${dist}/email/templates">
<fileset dir="${BaseDir}/email/templates" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${dist}/jasper" />
<copy todir="${dist}/jasper">
<fileset dir="${BaseDir}/jasper" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${dist}/conf" />
<copy todir="${dist}">
<fileset dir="${BaseDir}/db_scripts" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<mkdir dir="${dist}/jars" />
<copy todir="${dist}/jars">
<fileset dir="${TPL}" includes="*.*" />
</copy>
<copy todir="${build}" file="src/MessageResources.properties">
</copy>
<!--
Put everything in ${build} into the MyProject-${DSTAMP}.war file
-->
<war destfile="${dist}/DikshaPortalv2.0.war" webxml="${WEB-INF}/web.xml" basedir="${GUI}">
<classes dir="${build}" />
<lib dir="${WEB-INF}/lib" />
<webinf dir="${WEB-INF}" includes="*.xml" excludes="web.xml" />
<fileset dir="${META-INF}" />
</war>
<copy todir="${build}">
<fileset dir="${dist}" includes="*.war" />
</copy>
<delete dir="${GUI}" />
<delete dir="${build}" />
</target>
Iam completely new to gradle, I was told to migrate the existing ant
script into gradle at my company. Somebody please help me on How to
convert the above given ant script into gradle.
Iam completely new to gradle, I was told to migrate the existing ant
script into gradle at my company. Somebody please help me on How to
convert the above given ant script into gradle.

Answer 1

I would start with a very basic build.gradle file in your root directory of the DikshaPortal project, run gradle build from the terminal or command line and see what happens. Do you understand your dependencies for this project? If so, then you can add that block into your gradle script.
apply plugin: 'war'
dependencies {
//enter your dependenices here such as
compile group: 'com.junit' name: 'junit' version: '4.12'
}
This is a start. Gradle docs are decent so I'd start to acquaint yourself with them. I just completed a decent size project converting Ant to Gradle in my first job as a developer and it took a while! Run a gradle build to check for errors. Even when it's successful check your war (or any generated artifact) against the Ant and keep on going. Hope that helps.
https://gradle.org/guides/
https://github.com/shekhargulati/gradle-tips
http://dougborg.org/what-makes-a-good-build-dot-gradle
https://docs.gradle.org/3.3/dsl/ You can change the version to whichever you are using.

Answer 2

Not an exact answer but a possible alternative solution.
I dont believe that there is a conversion tool for ant to gradle, but you can just import your ant file into gradle and run it from there.
Here is how to do it:
https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/ant.html?_ga=2.102231682.2042183466.1518506088-863573233.1518506088#sec:import_ant_build
Seems more viable than trying to rewrite the whole script to gradle.
build.gradle file
ant.importBuild 'build.xml'