How to simplify this Gradle command line? - gradle

Question

I am new to Gradle and have gotten a fairly sophisticated build working with it so far (runs tests, uses CodeNarc, generates API docs, generates a sources JAR, etc.). The command line for a "full build" (that is, to execute all the major tasks that the CI server should be running), I need to enter the following Gradle command at the shell:
gradle clean build check groovydoc sourcesJar createPom dist -Pversion=<version>
Where <version> is the version I want to build.
I would like to condense this and add an alias so that all of the above can be accomplished with something simple, like:
gradle full-build
Is this possible? If so, how?
My build.gradle
apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'maven'
apply plugin: 'codenarc'
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
compile 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.3.3'
testCompile 'junit:junit:4.11'
}
groovydoc
task sourcesJar(type: Jar, dependsOn: classes) {
classifier = 'sources'
from sourceSets.main.allSource
}
artifacts {
archives sourcesJar
}
task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
gradleVersion = '1.11'
}
task dist(type: Zip, dependsOn: build) {
classifier = 'buildreport'
from('build/test-results') {
include '*.xml'
into 'tests'
}
from('build/reports/codenarc') {
into 'reports'
}
from('build/docs') {
into 'api'
}
from(sourcesJar) {
into 'source'
}
from('build/libs') {
exclude '*-sources.jar'
into 'bin'
}
}
task createPom << {
pom {
project {
groupId "me"
artifactId "myapp"
version version
}
}.writeTo("build/libs/myapp-${version}.pom")
}

Answer 1

In the above build invocation, at least check and sourcesJar can be omitted already. (build depends on check, and from(sourcesJar) tells Gradle that dist depends on sourcesJar.) By adding further task dependencies (e.g. build.dependsOn dist), you can cut it down to gradle clean build -Pversion=.... dist should not depend on build but on the specific tasks that produce the artifacts that go into the zip (e.g. groovydoc and createPom).
Reducing gradle clean build to gradle fullBuild is more difficult, as Gradle doesn't currently have a first-class concept of "aliases", and adding build.dependsOn(clean) is usually not desirable. One way out is to implement your own aliasing mechanism by manipulating gradle.startParameter.taskNames.