Weird behaviour of a simple gradle copy task - gradle

Question

I am completely baffled by the gradle behaviour of a Copy task into multiple directories.
I intend to copy all files from src/common into
target/dir1/ps_modules
target/dir2/ps_modules
target/dir3/ps_modules
Below is how my build.gradle looks:
project.ext.dirs = ["dir1", "dir2", "dir3"]
// ensures that ps_modules directory is created before copying
def ensurePsModulesDir() {
dirs.each {
def psModules = file("target/$it/ps_modules")
if (!(psModules.exists())) {
println("Creating ps_modules directory $psModules as it doesn't exist yet")
mkdir psModules
}
}
}
task copyCommons(type: Copy) {
doFirst {
ensurePsModulesDir()
}
from("src/common")
dirs.each {
into "target/$it/ps_modules"
}
}
The result of running the command ./gradlew copyCommons is completely weird.
The folder creation works as expected, however, the contents/files are copied only in the target/dir3/ps_modules directory. The rest two directories remain empty.
Any help would be appreciated.
Below is the screen grab of target directory tree once the job is run:

Answer 1

I think you want to do something like:
task copyCommons(type: Copy) {
dirs.each {
with copySpec {
from "src/common"
into "target/$it/ps_modules"
}
}
}
I think you can get rid of the ensurePsModulesDir() with this change
* edit *
it seems that the copy task is forcing us to set a destination dir. You might think that setting destinationDir = '.' is ok but it's used in up-to-date checking so likely the task will NEVER be considered up-to-date so will always run. I suggest you use project.copy(...) instead of a Copy task. Eg
task copyCommons {
// setup inputs and outputs manually
inputs.dir "src/common"
dirs.each {
outputs.dir "target/$it/ps_modules"
}
doLast {
dirs.each { dir ->
project.copy {
from "src/common"
into "target/$dir/ps_modules"
}
}
}
}

Answer 2

You can configure a single into for a task of type Copy. In this particular example gradle behaves as expected. Since dir3 is the last element on the list it is finally configured as a destination. Please have a look at this question - which you can find helpful. Also this thread might be helpful as well.