Build Android project on command line on OSX: Task 'assembleDebug' not found in root project

Question

I'm trying to build Android projects on the OSX (Mavericks 10.9.5) command line using this how-to: http://developer.android.com/tools/building/building-cmdline.html.

This How-To explains the use of assembleDebug/assembleRelease to build an Android project.

Unfortunately gradle doesn't create the assembleDebug or assembleRelease targets.

Executing ./gradlew assembleDebug returns this:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Task 'assembleDebug' not found in root project 'test'.

* Try:
Run gradlew tasks to get a list of available tasks. Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack     trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 2.826 secs

Steps:

android create project

The test project has been created with android create project --path . --name "DummyAPK" --target android-21 --package com.dummyapk.dummyapk --activity DummyActivity

which returned

Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/src/com/dummyapk/dummyapk
Added file ./src/com/dummyapk/dummyapk/DummyActivity.java
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/bin
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/libs
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/values
Added file ./res/values/strings.xml
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/layout
Added file ./res/layout/main.xml
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/drawable-xhdpi
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/drawable-hdpi
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/drawable-mdpi
Created directory /Users/user/Documents/test/res/drawable-ldpi
Added file ./AndroidManifest.xml
Added file ./build.xml
Added file ./proguard-project.txt

gradle init

After that I executed gradle init, which returned

:wrapper
:init
BUILD SUCCESSFUL

gradlew tasks

Querying the available tasks with gradlew tasks returns (isn't there missing something?)

:tasks

------------------------------------------------------------
All tasks runnable from root project
------------------------------------------------------------

Build Setup tasks
-----------------
init - Initializes a new Gradle build. [incubating]
wrapper - Generates Gradle wrapper files. [incubating]

Help tasks
----------
components - Displays the components produced by root project 'test'. [incubating]
dependencies - Displays all dependencies declared in root project 'test'.
dependencyInsight - Displays the insight into a specific dependency in root project 'test'.
help - Displays a help message.
projects - Displays the sub-projects of root project 'test'.
properties - Displays the properties of root project 'test'.
tasks - Displays the tasks runnable from root project 'test'.

To see all tasks and more detail, run with --all.

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Total time: 3.474 secs

My Java version is

java version "1.7.0_60"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_60-b19)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.60-b09, mixed mode)

..and Gradle version (installed via brew) is

------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 2.2.1
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2014-11-24 09:45:35 UTC
Build number: none
Revision:     6fcb59c06f43a4e6b1bcb401f7686a8601a1fb4a

Groovy:       2.3.6
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.3 compiled on December 23 2013
JVM:          1.7.0_60 (Oracle Corporation 24.60-b09)
OS:           Mac OS X 10.9.5 x86_64

What am I missing to be able to build an Android project on the command line?

Answer 1

android create project does not create a gradle friendly structure. It creates an ant friendly structure. You have two options depending on your intentions.

1. use ant to build your project ( not currently supported by Android team )
2. use Android Studio to generate a gradle friendly project structure.

num 2 is the recommended approach by the Android team. It's as simple as dl'ing Android Studio and creating a new project. From there you should be able to create a new project that can be built with ./gradlew build