Gradle tip #2: understanding syntax

In the Part 1 we talked about tasks and different stages of the build lifecycle. But after I published it I realized that before we jump into Gradle specifics it is very important to understand what we are dealing with - understand its syntax and stop being scared when we see complex build.gradle scripts. With this article I will try to fill this missing gap.

Syntax

Gradle build scripts are written in Groovy, so before we start analyzing them, I want to touch (briefly) some key Groovy concepts. Groovy syntax is somewhat similar to Java, so hopefully you won't have much problems understanding it.

If you feel comfortable with Groovy - feel free to skip this section.

There is one important Groovy aspect you need to understand in order to understand Gradle scripts - Closure.

Closures

Closure is a key concept which we need to grasp to better understand Gradle. Closure is a standalone block of code which can take arguments, return values and be assigned to a variable. It is some sort of a mix between Callable interface, Future, function pointer, you name it..

Essentially this is a block of code which is executed when you call it, not when you create it. Let's see a simple Closure example:

def myClosure = { println 'Hello world!' }

//execute our closure
myClosure()

#output: Hello world!

Or here is a closure which accepts a parameter:

def myClosure = {String str -> println str }

//execute our closure
myClosure('Hello world!')

#output: Hello world!

Or if closure accepts only 1 parameter, it can be referenced as it:

def myClosure = {println it }

//execute our closure
myClosure('Hello world!')

#output: Hello world!

Or if closure accepts multiple input parameters:

def myClosure = {String str, int num -> println "$str : $num" }

//execute our closure
myClosure('my string', 21)

#output: my string : 21

By the way, argument types are optional, so example above can be simplified to:

def myClosure = {str, num -> println "$str : $num" }

//execute our closure
myClosure('my string', 21)

#output: my string : 21

One cool feature is that closure can reference variables from the current context (read class). By default, current context - is the class within this closure was created:

def myVar = 'Hello World!'
def myClosure = {println myVar}
myClosure()

#output: Hello world!

Another cool feature is that current context for the closure can be changed by calling Closure#setDelegate(). This feature will become very important later:

def myClosure = {println myVar} //I'm referencing myVar from MyClass class
MyClass m = new MyClass()
myClosure.setDelegate(m)
myClosure()

class MyClass {
    def myVar = 'Hello from MyClass!'
}

#output: Hello from MyClass!

As you can see, at the moment when we created closure, myVar variable doesn't exist. And this is perfectly fine - it should be present in the closure context at the point when we execute this closure.

In this case I modified current context for the closure right before I executed it, so myVar is available.

Pass closure as an argument

The real benefit of having closures - is an ability to pass closure to different methods which helps us to decouple execution logic.

In previous section we already used this feature when passed closure to another class instance. Now we will go through different ways to call method which accepts closure:

method accepts 1 parameter - closure
myMethod(myClosure)
if method accepts only 1 parameter - parentheses can be omitted
myMethod myClosure
I can create in-line closure
myMethod {println 'Hello World'}
method accepts 2 parameters
myMethod(arg1, myClosure)
or the same as '4', but closure is in-line
myMethod(arg1, { println 'Hello World' })
if last parameter is closure - it can be moved out of parentheses
myMethod(arg1) { println 'Hello World' }

At this point I really have to point your attention to example #3 and #6. Doesn't it remind you something from gradle scripts? ;)

Gradle

Now we know mechanics, but how it is related to actual Gradle scripts? Let's take simple Gradle script as an example and try to understand it:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.2.3'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
}

Look at that! Knowing Groovy syntax we can somewhat understand what is happening here!

there is (somewhere) a buildscript method which accepts closure:

def buildscript(Closure closure)
there is (somewhere) a allprojects method which accepts closure:

def allprojects(Closure closure)

...and so on.

This is cool, but this information alone is not particularly helpful... What does "somewhere" mean? We need to know exactly where this method is declared.

And the answer is - Project

Project

This is a key for understanding Gradle scripts:

All top level statements within build script are delegated to Project instance

This means that Project - is the starting point for all my searches.

This being said - let's try to find buildscript method.

If we search for buildscript - we will find buildscript {} script block. But wait.. What the hell is script block??? According to documentation:

A script block is a method call which takes a closure as a parameter

Ok! We found it! That's exactly what happens when we call buildscript { ... } - we execute method buildscript which accepts Closure.

If we keep reading buildscript documentation - it says: Delegates to:
ScriptHandler from buildscript. It means that execution scope for the closure we pass as an input parameter will be changed to ScriptHandler. In our case we passed closure which executes repositories(Closure) and dependencies(Closure) methods. Since closure is delegated to ScriptHandler, let's try to search for dependencies method within ScriptHandler class.

And here it is - void dependencies(Closure configureClosure), which according to documentation, configures dependencies for the script. Here we are seeing another terminology: Executes the given closure against the DependencyHandler. Which means exactly the same as "delegates to [something]" - this closure will be executed in scope of another class (in our case - DependencyHandler)

"delegates to [something]" and "configures [something]" - 2 statements which mean exactly the same - closure will be execute against specified class.

Gradle extensively uses this delegation strategy, so it is really important to understand terminology here.

For the sake of completeness, let's see what is happening when we execute closure {classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.2.3'} within DependencyHandlercontext. According to documentation this class configures dependencies for given configuration and the syntax should be:
<configurationName> <dependencyNotation1>

So with our closure we are configuring configuration with name classpath to use com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.2.3 as a dependency.

Script blocks

By default, there is a set of pre-defined script blocks within Project, but Gradle plugins are allowed to add new script blocks!

It means that if you are seeing something like something { ... } at the top level of your build script and you couldn't find neither script block or method which accepts closure in the documentation - most likely some plugin which you applied added this script block.

`android` Script block

Let's take a look at the default Android app/build.gradle build script:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 22
    buildToolsVersion "22.0.1"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.trickyandroid.testapp"
        minSdkVersion 16
        targetSdkVersion 22
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

As we can see, it seems like there should be android method which accepts Closure as a parameter. But if we try to search for such method in Project documentation - we won't find any. And the reason for that is simple - there is no such method :)

If you look closely to the build script - you can see that before we execute androidmethod - we apply com.android.application plugin! And that's the answer! Android application plugin extends Project object with android script block (which is simply a method which accepts Closure and delegates it to AppExtension class1).

But where can I find Android plugin documentation? And the answer is - you can download documentation from the official Android Tools website (or here is a direct link to documentation).

If we open AppExtension documentation - we will find all the methods and attributes from our build script:

compileSdkVersion 22. if we search for compileSdkVersion we will find property. In this case we assign "22" to property compileSdkVersion
the same story with buildToolsVersion
defaultConfig - is a script block which delegates execution to ProductFlavorclass
.....and so on

So now we have really powerful ability to understand the syntax of Gradle build scripts and search for documentation.

Exercise

With this powerful ability (oh, that's sounds awesome), let's go ahead and try reconfigure something :)

In AppExtension I found script block testOptions which delegates Closure to TestOptions class. Going to TestOptions class we can see that there are 2 properties: reportDir and resultsDir. According to documentation, reportDir is responsible for test report location. Let's change it!

android {
......
    testOptions {
        reportDir "$rootDir/test_reports"
    }
}

Here I used rootDir property from Project class which points to the root project directory.

So now if I execute ./gradlew connectedCheck, my test report will go into [rootProject]/test_reports directory.

Please don't do this in your real project - all build artifacts should go into build dir, so you don't pollute your project structure.

Happy gradling!

P.S. Thanks a lot @Mark Vieira for proof-reading this article!

It is worth mentioning that "com.android.library" plugin delegates closure to "LibraryExtension" class instead of "AppExtension" ↩

Cdacians

Thursday 7 September 2017