Gradle global variable not in scope within buildscript

Question

I have something like this in my top level build.gradle (Gradle 2.2)

ext.repo = "https://my-artifactory-repo"

buildscript {
    repositories {
        maven {
            credentials {
                username foo
                password bar
            }
            url repo //doesn't work
        }
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.14.1'

    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven {
            credentials {
                username foo
                password bar
            }
            url repo //works
        }
    }
}

This is the error

Could not find property 'repo' on org.gradle.api.internal.artifacts.repositories.DefaultMavenArtifactRepository_Decorated@718afa64.

So it works in allprojects but not buildscript.

Answer 1

This is happening because the buildscript {...} configuration closure is always evaluated first, so the property is not yet defined. A workaround would be to define the property outside of the build script, either by placing it in a gradle.properties file or via the command line.

Answer 2

You can define your variable as an extra property with ext in the buildscript {...}. This variable is then also accessible in the scope of allprojects {...}:

buildscript {
    ext {
        repo = "https://my-artifactory-repo"
    }
    repositories {
        maven {
            url repo // works
        }
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven {
            url repo // works
        }
    }
}