How to pass arguments from command line to gradle

Question

project.group is a predefined property. With -P, you can only set project properties that are not predefined. Alternatively, you can set Java system properties (-D).

Building on Peter N's answer, this is an example of how to add (optional) user-specified arguments to pass to Java main for a JavaExec task (since you can't set the 'args' property manually for the reason he cites.)

Add this to the task:

task(runProgram, type: JavaExec) {

  [...]

  if (project.hasProperty('myargs')) {
      args(myargs.split(','))
  }

... and run at the command line like this

% ./gradlew runProgram '-Pmyargs=-x,7,--no-kidding,/Users/rogers/tests/file.txt'

My program with two arguments, args[0] and args[1]:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    System.out.println(args);
    String host = args[0];
    System.out.println(host);
    int port = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);

my build.gradle

run {
    if ( project.hasProperty("appArgsWhatEverIWant") ) {
        args Eval.me(appArgsWhatEverIWant)
    }
}

my terminal prompt:

gradle run  -PappArgsWhatEverIWant="['localhost','8080']"

As of Gradle 4.9 Application plugin understands --args option, so passing the arguments is as simple as:

build.gradle

plugins {
    id 'application'
}

mainClassName = "my.App"

src/main/java/my/App.java

public class App {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(args);
    }
}

bash

./gradlew run --args='This string will be passed into my.App#main arguments'

or in Windows, use double quotes:

gradlew run --args="This string will be passed into my.App#main arguments"

You can use custom command line options in Gradle:

./gradlew printPet --pet="Puppies!"

Custom command line options were an incubating feature in Gradle 5.0 but became public in Gradle 6.0.

Java solution

Follow the instructions here:

import org.gradle.api.tasks.options.Option;

public class PrintPet extends DefaultTask {
    private String pet;

    @Option(option = "pet", description = "Name of the cute pet you would like to print out!")
    public void setPet(String pet) {
        this.pet = pet;
    }

    @Input
    public String getPet() {
        return pet;
    }

    @TaskAction
    public void print() {
        getLogger().quiet("'{}' are awesome!", pet);
    }
}

Then register it:

task printPet(type: PrintPet)

Now you can do:

./gradlew printPet --pet="Puppies!"

output:

Puppies! are awesome!

Kotlin solution

open class PrintPet : DefaultTask() {

    @Suppress("UnstableApiUsage")
    @set:Option(option = "pet", description = "The cute pet you would like to print out")
    @get:Input
    var pet: String = ""

    @TaskAction
    fun print() {    
        println("$pet are awesome!")
    }
}

then register the task with:

tasks.register<PrintPet>("printPet")

If you need to check and set one argument, your build.gradle file would be like this:

....

def coverageThreshold = 0.15

if (project.hasProperty('threshold')) {
    coverageThreshold = project.property('threshold').toString().toBigDecimal()
}

//print the value of variable
println("Coverage Threshold: $coverageThreshold")
...

And the Sample command in windows:

gradlew clean test -Pthreshold=0.25