Gradle: how to make JavaExec task use configuration classpath?

Question

Here's the problem: I want to execute some java class with some dependencies from, say, runtime configuration. How can this be done?

task runJava(type: JavaExec, dependsOn:[classes]) {
        main = 'mypackage.MyClass'
        classpath = //what should I write here to provide classes from runtime configuration?
}

Answer 1

You will probably want to use the runtime classpath of your Source sets which includes the compiled classes of your project as well as all the runtime dependencies.

task runJava(type: JavaExec, dependsOn:[classes]) {
    main = 'mypackage.MyClass'
    classpath = sourceSets.main.runtimeClasspath
}

In case you want to the get the path of a specific configuration you can do something like this: configurations.getByName('runtime').asPath or shorter configurations.runtime.asPath.