Correctly import Gradle projects in Eclipse

Question

I have a set of 15 or so interdependent Gradle Java modules/projects that build correctly with Gradle. However, I run into issues importing them into Eclipse.

If I import them via the Gradle Eclipse plug-in (import as Gradle project) and select "Build Model" in the root folder, it imports the projects, but doesn't treat them as Java projects. Specifically, syntax errors are not recognized.

If I import each project individually, they are recognized as Java projects, but they are not linked properly and Eclipse shows build errors.

How do I properly import/link Gradle projects into Eclipse?

Answer 1

Check if your project has eclipse specific files like .project, .classpath etc. These are hidden files so you need to run command $ls -la to confirm that.

If those files are not there then you need to convert your project into a valid eclipse project. Gradle provides plugin to do that.

1. Add eclipse plugin in gradle build file (i.e. build.gradle).

     apply plugin: 'eclipse'
   

2. Run $gradle eclipse

I have provided these details on my blog, here.

Answer 2

Unfortunately is not easy to answer that, it depends on the details of your project. I found that for complex projects it often needs specific tweaks in the build script.

I am going to assume your projects have never been used in Eclipse. These are some tips that may work for such cases (or they may not, and will need more specific tweaks).

1) make sure to apply the 'eclipse' plugin to all your projects if they are plain Java projects, or the 'eclipse-wtp' plugin if they 'war' style web projects.

2) import your projects with 'dependency management' disabled (this is one of the options in the import wizard.

If this doesn't work, I will need more details about your projects and/or exactly what is going wrong with the import. It sounds like maybe your projects are not getting a proper java nature, or the source folders are not correctly configured. The contents of the .classpath and .project files for the 'badly configured' projects would be helpful.