gradle multi-project: ordering / dependencies

Question

i have a multi-project build that includes many sub projects.

include ':common'
project( ':common' ).projectDir = new File( rootDir, 'android-common/common' )

include ':setup'
project( ':setup' ).projectDir = new File( rootDir, 'android-setup/setup' )
...

i'd like to add ordering (or dependencies) between them, at the master project level. in the above example, i want common to always build before setup. it seems like i want do something like get a reference to setup:compile (or whatever the build task is named) and add an additional dependency. something like,

tasks[':setup'].dependsOn += tasks[':common:install']

obviously that doesn't work. is this possible?

EDIT: a little more detail. the result of :common is to install a maven artifact, which is then used by :setup. so, the dependency between them is soft. however, in our typical dev cycle we still want to build :common first.

Answer 1

it sounds to me like you want to use project dependencies

project(':setup') {
   dependencies {
     compile project(':common')
   }
}

EDIT: it seems that you just want to declare cross-project task dependencies in your parent build.gradle.

tasks.getByPath(":setup:compile").dependsOn(":common:install")

Note that this will cause the setup project to be evaluated/configured at that point. If this causes problems for some reason, you might want to use an evaluation listener

project("setup").afterEvaluate { setup -> setup.compile.dependsOn ":common:install }

Further note that if you want to build the setup project independently in this structure you will have to use the -u command line option.