Gradle - Create Java Project Structure

Gradle Init plugin can be used to bootstrap the process of creating a new Java, Groovy or Scala project. This plugin needs to be applied to a project before it can be used. So if we want to create default directory structure of a Java project this plugin can be handy (Especially if you don't have Gradle plugin in your IDE).

$gradle init --type java-library

The init plugin supports multiple types (it's 'java-library' in above command). Below are the command sequence and directory which gets created after successful execution.

$ mkdir hello-gradle
$ cd hello-gradle/
$ gradle init --type java-library
:wrapper
:init

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Total time: 8.766 secs
$ ls -ltr
total 20
drwxrwxr-x. 3 vagrant vagrant   20 Jul 20 06:00 gradle
-rwxrwxr-x. 1 vagrant vagrant 5080 Jul 20 06:00 gradlew
-rw-rw-r--. 1 vagrant vagrant 2404 Jul 20 06:00 gradlew.bat
-rw-rw-r--. 1 vagrant vagrant  643 Jul 20 06:00 settings.gradle
-rw-rw-r--. 1 vagrant vagrant 1212 Jul 20 06:00 build.gradle
drwxrwxr-x. 4 vagrant vagrant   28 Jul 20 06:00 src
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So above command also installs the other Gradle dependencies to run the build (i.e. gradl, gradlew.bat). If you don't know what the appropriate type for your project, specify any value then it will list valid types.

$ gradle init --type something
Execution failed for task ':init'.
> The requested build setup type 'something' is not supported. Supported types: 'basic', 'groovy-library', 'java-library', 'pom', 'scala-library'.

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So, if you just type any random text as type; Gradle tells the allowed types.

If you just use $gradle init , then gradle tries (it's best) to automatically detect the type. If it fails to identify the type, then applies basic type. 

Importing Gradle Project to Eclipse

Note that, above command created gradle specific files along with default java directories (like src) but it didn't create eclipse specific files. This means, if you try to import above created project in eclipse it will not work. To achieve that, do below:

1. Add eclipse plugin in gradle build file (i.e. build.gradle).  Put below after java plugin. 

          apply plugin: 'eclipse'

1. Run $gradle eclipse

This basically creates files - .classpath, .project and .settings

Now, you are good to import above project in eclipse.

Alternatively, you can clone from my GitHub repository. 

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Happy coding !!!