Gradle howto

We treat gradle as a build tool and dependency management system. We use it to (a) automagically manage the libraries our project uses, and (b) compile and run our code by typing (relatively) short, easy to remember commands.

Checking your installation

To check whether your machine already has gradle installed or not, type

$ gradle -v

If gradle is already installed, you’ll be told the gradle version, build time, revision, and other related information.

If gradle is not installed, you’ll be told that the gradle command cannot be found.

First make sure your computer has Java JDK and gradle installed! If using a Mac, follow the osx-software-install-how-to instruction. If using Linux, follow the linux-software-install-how-to instruction. If using Windows, follow the windows-software-install-how-to instruction.

Compiling programs with gradle

To compile your kotlin program, first make sure your shell’s current directory is in the root directory of your gradle project. For example, if your project is at ~/mcs178/nbody then you should type

$ cd ~/mcs178/nbody

To actually tell gradle to go ahead and compile, type

$ gradle build

Running programs with gradle

Make sure your shell’s current directory is the root directory of your gradle project. Change directory into it if necessary.

To run your Kotlin program with no command line arguments, type

$ gradle -q run

To run your Kotlin program and give it command line arguments, say, “x y z”, type

$ gradle -q run --args="x y z"

The string following --args= needs be quoted only if it contains whitespaces.

Digging deeper

There are many more tasks the gradle command can do. To see what tasks are available, type

$ gradle tasks

while your current working directory is the root directory of a gradle project.

To learn more about gradle, consult the official gradle documentation at https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/userguide.html