Relative project dependencies in Gradle?

Question

When specifying Gradle project dependencies, can I avoid using a full absolute project name and use a relative one instead? (i.e. in my example I don\'t want to explicitly speci

Answer 1

A late answer never hurts. My solution was close to what @lihsus suggested.

Say you have the following project structure:

//Directory structure
app-a/
   domain-a/
       build.gradle
   webapp-a/
       build.gradle

Make sure your app-a has a build.gradle and a settings.gradle.

In the settings.gradle of app-a you can then include both modules/projects such as:

include ':domain-a'
include ':webapp-a'

And then in webapp-a you can add domain-a as a compile dependency such as you suggested:

compile project(':domain-a')

Answer 2

For Android development under Android Studio and gradle, here's how to compile a library that isn't under your project's root but has a relative path:

1. Include the library in settings.gradle and override the projectDir:

   include 'MyTestLibProject:MyTestLib'
   project(':MyTestLibProject:MyTestLib').projectDir = new File(settingsDir, '../MyTestLibProject/MyTestLib')
   

2. Edit the build.gradle for the library to use the android-library plugin instead of android, this causes the library outputs to be included into projects that reference it:

   apply plugin: 'android-library'
   

3. Specify that your project has a dependency on the lib by editing the build.gradle for the non-lib project:

   compile project(path: ':MyTestLibProject:MyTestLib')
   

4. If the lib includes any jars that your project also includes, the build will see them as a collision when it is generating the apk. Abstract jars into an additional lib that both the project and lib reference, or just exclude the colliding jar from the main project and let it pick up the jar from the dependency:

   dependencies {
       compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar', exclude: '**/android-support-v4.jar')
       compile project(path: ':MyTestLibProject:MyTestLib')
   }
   

DISCLAIMER: This isn't how gradle wants you to do this - you're intended to publish the lib using maven and then reference the dependency using the "POM" of the published lib (which includes the version number). This provides better dependency management - for example, maven simplifies the scenario of having many projects (with varying release cycles) all using various versions of a common lib. The relative path technique described here is a quick way to get up and running for small projects or as an interim step for projects being ported from ant.

Reference: http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user-guide#TOC-Creating-a-Library-Project

Answer 3

Relative names are a bad idea since they make your project depend on the wider project it is located in. That should not be the case. I suggest to avoid using the relative name.

In terms of retrieving the parent project as a dependency this would be done via the default being the parent directory or that failing it would use the usual dependency resolution mechanism, which uses the coordinates (groupId, artifactId and version) and looks the artifact up in the local repository..

Answer 4

Use compile project':'. Nothing else is required. Now your 'using' project will use this shared project on your file system/Eclipse/IntelliJ.

Answer 5

Although using relative paths might be a bad practice, sometimes you might just need it that way. Nevertheless, here is how you can get it to work.

You need to create settings.gradle file inside webapp-a

webapp-a/settings.gradle

include '..:domain-a'

Then in webapp-a/build.gradle

compile project(':..:domain-a')

(haven't tested it myself but it should work)

EDIT: replaced ../domain-a by ..:domain-a in both files