Hi all,

 

I have previously been using an ant-build script for compiling of my mod.  It used a technique that I learned from Buildcraft to replace the version number in the mod source (in the .java files) with the version number provided to the build system (through a properties file, command line, etc).  It would replace any version tokens found in the source with the intended version number from the build environment.  This simplified several things, as I only had to update my version number in a single place to have it propagate/replaced across to the various Mod classes/config classes as well as the mcmod.info file.

 

Has anyone found a similar solution using Gradle?

 

The default-shipped build.gradle file includes the code for updating the mcmod.info file (I've even got it loading the version number from an external properties file as it was for ant), but I can't seem to find a way to adapt the same code to work on source-files?  (the processResources task is apparently called _after_ compilation, so at that step it is too late to find/replace tokens)

 

All of the google research that I was able to do suggested two things A:  That you shouldn't dynamically replace strings in source, but should instead load the strings into the program from a properties file at runtime -- unfortunately this cannot be done for the Mod version number, as it is declared as a final field -- it HAS to exist at compile-time, it cannot be delayed until runtime.  So either I manually update version number across multiple files, or continue doing it with a build script in one fashion or another.

 

The other suggestion B:  Was to use an ant.task from within gradle to accomplish the same thing.  Okay..great..pretty sure I could figure out how to get that working -- but where precisely to put that new task, and how to link it into the existing build file?  (I'm thinking I should be able to declare a new task, and tell gradle that the compileJava task depends on the new one, but I'm a bit lost on...well..the entire gradle environment/language, and all the documentation I can find is so far abstracted from what I am trying to accomplish that I cannot draw any parallels to learn from).

 

Anyone have experience with this stuff in gradle / figured out how to duplicate this simple functionality in gradle?

Well...a bit more playing around, research, reading..experimenting, and I've found the solution.

 

Essentially, my earlier attempts were correct, however there is no run-time error to tell you that you are missing imports.  Hell, there was nothing to let me know that gradle could even use imports.

 

so...anyway, if anyone is curious, here is the code:

(yes, I put open braces on new-lines....which I think can also mess with gradle a bit, hence the single task with the broken brace)

 

import org.apache.tools.ant.filters.ReplaceTokens
buildscript 
{
    repositories 
    {
        mavenCentral()
        maven 
        {
            name = "forge"
            url = "http://files.minecraftforge.net/maven"
        }
    }
    dependencies 
    {
        classpath 'net.minecraftforge.gradle:ForgeGradle:1.0-SNAPSHOT'
    }    
}

allprojects
{
  apply plugin: 'forge'
  minecraft
  {
    version = "1.6.4-9.11.1.964"
  }
  version = project.version
  group = "shadowmage" // http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-naming-conventions.html
  archivesBaseName = "ancientwarfare"
}

sourceSets.main
{ 
  java
  {
    srcDirs 'src'
  }
  
  resources
  {
    srcDirs 'resources'
  }  
}

compileJava.source = sourceSets.main.java

task updateVersion(type:Copy){
  from('src')
  {
    exclude 'mcmod.info'    
  }  
  into 'build/sources/java'
  filter(ReplaceTokens, tokens: [VERSION: project.version])
}

compileJava.dependsOn updateVersion

processResources
{   
  from(sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs)
  {    
    include 'mcmod.info'
    expand ('version':project.version)
    expand ('mcversion':project.minecraft.version)
  } 
  from(sourceSets.main.resources.srcDirs)
  {
    
  }
}

 

Edit:

Apparently this is still not entirely correct (it is not compiling the sources...I've probably specified build directory improperly), and I've got a bit of updating to do, but the version token replacement bit _does_ work.

 

Further Edit:

build-file code has been fixed to actually include the updated sources for compilation

 

there is probably a better way to do this -- hopefully someone can point it out...but for now, this solution works.

 

next up: how to update a build number from build-script.  research tells me again to use an ant task.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Glad to see you've got it sorted out. There's another, Forge-specific way to do this through the "minecraft" task:

 

minecraft {
    replaceIn "path/to/file.java"
    replace "PLACEHOLDER", someProperty
    replace "OTHER_PLACEHOLDER", otherProperty
}

Sorry to bother you, but how would you define the path? from which directory? or just using the package structure?