Deploy additional files in Gradle Application Plugin

Question

I have a small Java/Gradle project. I'm using the Application plugin to create a zip distribution (using the distZip task). Using the standard configuration I get the following directories in my zip file:

/bin - The scripts to start the application go in here
/lib - Contains my project code in a JAR file and all dependency JAR files.

The trouble is that I would like a third directory: /conf where I can put my configuration files (instead of having them packaged inside my application JAR file.

I imagine that this is a pretty common requirement because things like log4j.xml and hibernate.properties would be better placed outside the JAR file. I just can't figure out how I can customise the behavior of the Application plugin to do this however.

Answer 1

I revisited this problem several months later and I finally have an elegant solution. The following code should be added to the gradle file:

distZip {     into(project.name) {         from '.'         include 'conf/*'     } } 

This adds an additional include to the distZip task. This copies the "conf" directory (including contents) into the Zip distribution.

The generated zip file contains a single directory which is the same as the project name. This is why the "into" part is required.

Answer 2

Actually, create a dist dir under the src dir in your project. Anything in this dir is copied by the application plugin (under applicationDistribution) when installApp or distZip is run.

Or edit applicationDistribution to do other things, if a simple copy is not enough.

Answer 3

For me, a simple

applicationDistribution.from("src/main/config/") {
    into "config"
}

did the job. Of course you need to have your properties loaded correctly from within code. Especially if you move them from src/main/resources where they have been usable via classpath, into the new location. I circumvented this by adding a command line parameter which points to the configuration file.