Custom Plugin transitive Dependency resolution in BuildConfig.groovy Grails 2.2.3

Question

tl;dr version

Dependencies of my custom grails plugin weren't getting inherited and resolved by projects I installed the plugin to.

• Install the latest version of the release plugin to your plugin (fixes the issue for jar dependencies)
• Clear out any references to plugins that might exist in your BuildConfig.groovy file (fixes the issue for plugin dependencies)
• grails maven-install to make the plugin available in the mavenLocal() source

Long version

So, I've been trying to create a custom grails plugin for internal use at my University.

I'd really like it if putting the plugin in your BuildConfig.groovy file's plugins closure would automatically install not just the plugin, but all the dependencies defined for the plugin in its BuildConfig.groovy file (or, after packaging, its dependencies.groovy file).

Looking at the instructions, I have setup the BuildConfig.groovy file for my project with this in the repositories closure:

flatDir name:'my-plugin', dirs:'/Users/me/workspace-ggts/myplugin'

Then added this to the plugins closure:

compile(":grails-my-plugin:0.1")

That does install the plugin correctly, but it doesn't resolve any of the plugin's dependencies or needed plugins. Here's the three main closures in the plugin's BuildConfig.groovy file:

repositories {
    grailsCentral()
    mavenCentral()
    mavenRepo "http://www.mygrid.org.uk/maven/repository"
    def jbossResolver = new org.apache.ivy.plugins.resolver.URLResolver()
    jbossResolver.addArtifactPattern("https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/groups/public-jboss/com/sun/media/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]")
    jbossResolver.addArtifactPattern("https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/groups/public-jboss/javax/media/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]")
    resolver jbossResolver
}
dependencies {

    compile (
        [group:'javax.media', name:'jai-core', version:'1.1.3'],
        [group:'com.sun.media', name:'jai-codec', version:'1.1.3']
        )
    compile "net.java.dev.jai-imageio:jai-imageio-core-standalone:1.2-pre-dr-b04-2013-04-23" //this jar comes from the mygrid mavenRepo
}

plugins {
    build(":tomcat:$grailsVersion",
          ":release:1.0.0") {
        export = false
    }
    compile ":spring-security-core:1.2.7.3"
    compile ":wslite:0.7.2.0"
}

If I run the plugin using grails run-app, it resolves all of those dependencies just fine. It's only when the plugin is installed to a project that automatic dependency resolution fails.

I've tried making the plugin a maven artifact, and copying it to my local repository. In those cases, I removed the flatDir line from the repositories closure and replaced it with mavenLocal(). Again, the plugin itself installs, but none of the specified dependencies do.

I've tried setting legacyResolve in BuildConfig.groovy to true, but this also fails to install either the jars or the needed plugins (like wslite).

I even tried manually specifying compile(":grails-my-plugin:0.1") {transitive: true}, but it still won't resolve the plugins.

Between all of the above attempts I've uninstalled my plugin, run grails clean on the project, deleted the contents of the ~/.grails/2.2.3/cached-installed-plugins/ directory, and poured libation while intoning the holy name of Burt Beckwith, but I still can't get transitive resolution.

One other noteworthy thing: I've run a dependency-report on the project. It lists my plugin among the dependencies, but the report says that the plugin itself has no dependencies.

I also ran refresh-dependencies myAppDeps.xml in order to get a dependency report. It contains none of the plugin's dependencies that aren't also dependencies of a vanilla grails project.

Grails plugins in the public repositories get their dependencies resolved automagically (try putting spring-security-ldap in your BuildConfig.groovy file as an example, and spring-security-core will install). Does transitive resolution simply not work for local plugins? Are there any ways to make it work, like tacking something into _Install.groovy?

Update

So, I tried dmahapatro's suggestion. That did work for getting the jars on which myPlugin depends installed in the project; thus, the project compiles and the dependency report contains the needed jars. However, the plugins that myPlugin depends on are still not getting installed into the projects that I install myPlugin too. When I try to run the app after a successful compilation, I get this error:

| Error Error: The following plugins failed to load due to missing dependencies: [myPlugin]
- Plugin: myPlugin
   - Dependencies:
       - springSecurityCore (Required: 1.2 > *, Found: 1.2.7.3) 
       - jquery (Required: 1.7 > *, Found: 1.8.3) 
       ! wslite (Required: 0.7.2 > *, Found: Not Installed) [INVALID]

Further Update

So, I decided to try to isolate the problem. I created a fresh plugin (grails create-plugin transitiveDep), and a fresh project (grails create-app horseradish). I copied the relevant portions of BuildConfig.groovy from my working projects into each, changing the plugin dependency from my-plugin to transitive-dep.

Lo and behold, horseradish successfully installed all the needed dependencies (wslite, springSecurityCore). It even asked if I wanted to install the older version of jQuery.

So, nothing is wrong with my environment. I suspect at this point that something else is wrong with the plugin's configuration. It was originally written in Grails 2.0.1, then upgraded to 2.2.3. I've also tried installing it into a fresh app, just like I did my transitive-dep plugin, but with it still failed to resolve plugin dependencies. I'll post an update when I've figured out exactly where the issue is.

Final Update

So, the thing keeping the plugins from installing was that myPlugin referenced them in the application.properties file as well as BuildConfig.groovy. If I deleted the references to them there before packaging, the plugin installed just fine.

I also noticed that I still had the old Grails version (2.0) in myPluginGrailsPlugin.groovy file, as well as a dependsOn map that doesn't seem to be needed anymore. I removed/altered those lines, but it wasn't until clearing out the old references in application.properties that things really started working.

Notably, I also had to clear out my ~/.grails/2.2.3, ~/.grails/ivy-cache folders, and ~/.m2/repository/org/grails/plugins/ directories after making changes to myPlugin, or my projects would still try to install the old versions. I got so tired of doing that, I made a shell script to do it:

cd ~/.grails/2.2.3/
rm -r *
cd ~/.grails/ivy-cache/
rm -r *
cd ~/.m2/repository/org/grails/plugins/
rm -r *

Answer 1

Important actions to note and rectify (w.r.t Grails 2.2.3):

• Check your application.properties file. There should not be any reference to installed plugins in application.properties. If you had been installing plugins using the install-plugin command (which I discourage now since it will no longer be available), they were likely be written to that file. Delete any lines referencing installed plugins before you do a grails refresh-dependencies and grails maven-install.

• Upgrade release plugin inside your plugin to v2.2.1

as below if you are using latest version of grails.

......
build(":tomcat:$grailsVersion",
          ":release:2.2.1") {
        export = false
}
.......

• When you do grails maven-install on the plugin, the resultant zip created will be named as grails-my-plugin.zip if the plugin project name is MyPlugin, but when you refer the plugin in your grails application (retrieving from .m2 local repo), you have to refer the plugin as

  compile ':my-plugin:0.1' //instead of "grails-my-plugin"

Observation:

• I was facing issues (related to svn plugin) using release:1.0.0 (deliberately downgraded to replicate your issue) when testing so it is a better idea to upgrade to version 2.2.1 if you are using Grails 2.2.* etc. You would not be able to use v3.0.0 unless you use Grails 2.3 as mentioned in the doc.

• It did not complain anything when I used mygrid repo while testing. [http://www.mygrid.org.uk/maven/repository]

• Once my-plugin was added to my application I was able to compile my app where it installed spring security core referred from my-plugin.

• Dependency report showed the transitive dependencies as well.

Tested in Grails 2.2.3

Answer 2

on the plugin project run package-plugin. it will generate the dependency file for you. Than you should not get this dependency issue.

Answer 3

I had a similar issue of application not detecting transitive dependencies from plugin. My plugin's grails version was 2.3.4 and the app that used the plugin was 2.1.0.

The plugin was packaged using grails publish-plugin and manually uploaded to a private Maven compatible repository(Artifactory).

Grails 2.3.4 doesn't generate dependencies.groovy and the app didn't figure out the transitive dependencies and failed compilation.

As @rittinger mentioned in this post custom-plugin-dependencies-groovy-is-ignored pom does the trick. When I manually uploaded the plugin.zip file to Artifactory, it generated a pom file which didn't have a <dependencies/> section.

But when I followed the release plugin instructions and uploaded the plugin to Artifactory, the generated pom file had <dependencies/> section. Afterwards the App didn't have any problems resolving transitive dependencies.