Generate keys in gradle

Question

Currently I'm using ant XML to generate keys and sign jars.

I would like to eliminate the XML in the future by converting everything into a Gradle task without using ant.importBuild and not having to manually create keys with keytool -genkey. I believe I have the signing part figured out but need help with the key generation in gradle.

In the ant XML it currently looks like this:

<genkey alias="${key.alias}" keystore="${keystore.location}" storepass="${keystore.password}" dname="CN=name, OU=IT, O=org, C=US"/>

Is there an equivalent task to generate keys built into gradle? Unless I'm missing something Gradle seems to always assume the keys have already been generated.

I've read these ant and signing plugin pages but perhaps I can't see the forest because I'm lost in the trees.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Gradle treats Ant as a 'First Class Citizen'.

You can invoke any common Ant task in Gradle simply by prefixing the task name with ant. Properties are set similar to parameters to a method call. For more information see this link: https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/ant.html

So, for your case it would look something like:

ant.genkey(alias:$keyAlias, keystore:$keystoreLocation, storepass:$storePass, dname:'$dName) 

Answer 2

Here is an answer to your secondary question. Easier with a concrete example.

build.xml:

<project name="TestProject" default="test" basedir=".">
  <property name="key.alias" value="keyaliasvalue"/>

  <target name="testtarget">
      <echo>Test Target</echo>
  </target>
</project>

build.gradle:

ant.importBuild 'build.xml'

task test << {
    println("Value of ants key.alias property: " + ant.properties['key.alias'])
}

Results of running: gradle test

D:\Data\test>gradle test
:test
Value of ants key.alias property: keyaliasvalue

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Total time: 2.787 secs

Notes:

1) For my test case I place both the ant build.xml and build.gradle in the same directory.

2) Notice I use the format:

ant.properties['key.alias']. 

If there was not a period (.) in the property name it would be easier. Because the Gradle script is an actually Groovy file, the (.) causes Groovy to think you are trying to access a nested property on an object. Without the (.) in the name, like 'keyalias', you could simplify the syntax to:

ant.keyalias