gradle-codegen

This plugin makes it easy to integrate the generation of code into a gradle project without having to put the code into the buildSrc folder. Dependencies are automatic, only add the plugin and specify the code generation.

Conventions

The plugin adds a number of tasks, configurations and sourcesets to the build script. Note that names for the default sourceSet will, like other names, not have default in their name.

Type	Name	Function
Configuration	generate	The configuration used when running the generators
SourceSet	generators	A SourceSet for building the generators. It's runtime classpath will be used for execution
Configuration	generatorsCompile	The configuration for compiling generators (implicitly, together with other configurations) through the SourceSet
NamedDomainObjectContainer	generators	Convention in SourceSets to specify file generators
Task	generatorsCompile	The task responsible for compiling the generators.
Task	generate	The task to generate the code used in the SourceSet.
Output directory	outDir

How to use

There are two forms of code generation. One is for generators that create single files, the other is for files that work on a directory. While only one directory generator can be provided per task, there is no limit to the amount of file generators per sourceSet. Additional generator tasks can be created, but they will not be linked up to the source sets automatically.

Configurators are loaded by a separate classloader. In principle all generators in a task will use the same classloader, except in case that a generator specifies its own classpath, in which case it will get its own classloader.

File generators

A file generator is a class that has one of the following possible signatures (the first parameter will be passed a Writer, must be able to accept a writer and be Appendable or a subtype), the second will be provided with the value of the input parameter in the configuration):

• doGenerate(Appendable, T)
• doGenerate(Writer, T)
• doGenerate(Appendable) -- only valid if the value of the input configuration is null
• doGenerate(Writer) -- only valid if the value of the input configuration is null

The return type of all functions is ignored. Type T must be a type that accepts the value of the input configuration variable. A generator method can be static or an instance method. In case of an instance method, the containing class must have a zero-argument constructor.

This is used from gradle as follows:

sourceSets {
    main {
        generate {
            myNameInTheBuildScript {
                output = 'java/org/example/outputpackage/GeneratedClass.java'
                generator = "org.example.generators.MyGenerator"
                input = "Some arbitrary value of any type"
            }
        }
    }
}

Each GenerateSpec block has the following parameters:

Name	Type	Description
input	Object	Any value at all, or none. This is provided as a parameter to the generator.
generator	String	The name of the class to load.
classpath	FileCollection	A configurator specific set of jars and directories to use for loading classes. The classpath of the configuration will always be included as well.
output	String	The name of the file to write the output to.

Directory generators

Directory generators are specified on the GenerateTask itself. Directory generators are structured like file generators but do not have writers passed to them. Directory generators are classes with a doGenerate method as follows:

• doGenerate(File, T)
• doGenerate(Appendable) -- only valid if the value of the input

Type T is the type provided as input in the configuration of the GeneratorTask. Directory generators are used as follows:

generate { // predefined task
    outputDir = 'gen/main' // Defaults to gen/${sourceSetName} when autoCreated or gen for standalone tasks
    classpath = files( 'pathToJar' ) // Defaults to the classpath of the configuation with the same name as the task 
    dirGenerator {
        outputDir = 'java/org/example/outputpackage/GeneratedClass.java'
        classpath = null // Specific additional items to put on the classpath 
                        // for this generator only. The used classpath combines 
                        // this and the task specific one 
        generator = "org.example.generators.MyGenerator"
        input = "Some arbitrary value of any type"
    }
}