Gradle copy task fails silently

Question

I have a copy task for 1 file

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
    copy {
        from "/path/to/my/file"
        into "path/to/out/dir"
    }
}

How to do, so the task fails if the copy fails? Right now if the file does not exist, it does not give an error.

---

Fail Gradle Copy task if source directory not exist gives a solution. This does not work, because if everything is not inside of

copy { ... }

the task does not work at all.

---

I tried also

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
    copy {
        from "/path/to/my/file"
        into "path/to/out/dir"
        inputs.sourceFiles.stopExecutionIfEmpty()
    }
}

The above would fail, as inputs.sourceFiles would be empty.

Answer 1

Why don't you specify your task as:

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
    from "/path/to/my/file"
    into "path/to/out/dir"
    inputs.sourceFiles.stopExecutionIfEmpty()
}

This would work as expected during execution phase, while your solution would try to copy something during configuration phase of the build every time you call any task.

Answer 2

The very first definition of the tasks actually doesn't do what you expect from the task:

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
copy {
    from "/path/to/my/file"
    into "path/to/out/dir"
}

is acutually same as

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
    project.copy {
        from "/path/to/my/file"
        into "path/to/out/dir"
    }
}

And it will execute copy action during task configuration, no matter if the task is called or not.

What you need is:

task myCopyTask(type: Copy) {
    from "/path/to/my/file"
    into "path/to/out/dir"

    doFirst {
        if(inputs.empty) throw new GradleException("Input source for myCopyTask doesn't exist")
    }
}