Defining dependencies for multiple variants

Question

Say we have four build types: debug, qa, beta, and release.

We can define dependencies for specific variants like so:

dependencies {
    // These dependencies are only included for debug and qa builds
    debugCompile 'com.example:lib:1.0.0'
    qaCompile 'com.example:lib:1.0.0'
}

Is there a way to compile these dependencies for multiple variants without repeating the artifact descriptor?

For example, I would like to do something like this:

dependencies {
   internalCompile 'com.example:lib:1.0.0'
}

Where internalCompile would specify that the library is included for both debug and qa builds.

I believe that the solution lies within defining a new Gradle configuration, but if I create an internalCompile configuration I am unsure how to ensure that those dependencies are only compiled for qa and debug builds.

Answer 1

extendsFrom

The names of the configurations which this configuration extends from. The artifacts of the super configurations are also available in this configuration.

configurations {
    // debugCompile and qaCompile are already created by the Android Plugin
    internalCompile
}

debugCompile.extendsFrom(internalCompile)
qaCompile.extendsFrom(internalCompile)

dependencies {
    //this adds lib to both debugCompile and qaCompile
    internalCompile 'com.example:lib:1.0.0'
}

Alternatively:

You can create a collection of artifact descriptors and use it with multiple configurations.

List internalCompile = ["com.example:lib:1.0.0",
               "commons-cli:commons-cli:1.0@jar",
               "org.apache.ant:ant:1.9.4@jar"]

List somethingElse = ['org.hibernate:hibernate:3.0.5@jar',
                  'somegroup:someorg:1.0@jar']

dependencies {
    debugCompile internalCompile
    qaCompile internalCompile, somethingElse
}