In gradle, how to use a variable for a plugin version?

Question

One of my build scripts imports that nebula plugin:

plugins {   id 'nebula.ospackage' version '3.5.0' } 

I've been moving all of my version info into a separate file that all projects have access to and am wondering what is the correct syntax to convert to something like:

plugins {   id 'nebula.ospackage' version "$versions.nebula_gradle_ospackage_plugin" } 

When I try running the above with "gradle clean build", I get the following error:

build file 'build.gradle': 2: argument list must be exactly 1 literal non empty string

See https://docs.gradle.org/2.7/userguide/plugins.html#sec:plugins_block for information on the plugins {} block

@ line 2, column 33. id 'nebula.ospackage' version "$versions.nebula_gradle_ospackage_plugin"

The linked article shows how I could use the "buildscript" block, which works, but it seems like there must be a way to make this work in a single line?

Answer 1

You cannot use variable here:

Where «plugin version» and «plugin id» must be constant, literal, strings. No other statements are allowed; their presence will cause a compilation error.

Answer 2

As of Gradle 5.6, you can declare your plugin versions in the gradle.properties file, and reference these properties in plugins block.

For example, the gradle.properties file：

springBootVersion=2.2.0.RELEASE 

the plugins block in build.gradle:

plugins {     id "org.springframework.boot" version "${springBootVersion}" } 

See: https://github.com/gradle/gradle/issues/1697#issuecomment-506910915.

See also:

1. https://docs.gradle.org/5.6/release-notes.html#central-management-of-plugin-versions-with-settings-script
2. https://docs.gradle.org/5.6/userguide/plugins.html#sec:plugin_management