Gradle myCustomTask - How to avoid calling dependents tasks by passing command line arguments

Question

I have a custom task in Gradle (2.3)

task myCustomTask (dependsOn: [ jacocoTestReport ]) << {

   //Adding this didn't work, gives an error that options is not a property.
   //options.compilerArgs = ["-x compileJava -x classes -x test -x testClasses"]

   //Seems like the following line actually works!!! but still errors for "options" property. Strange!!
   //myCustomTask.options = [ "-x compileJava -x classes -x test -x testClasses" ]

   //..
   //...some...operation
   //..
}

How can I change the above custom task code in Gradle so that it can do what I'm doing at command line. I want that when someone calls myCustomTask and if it depends upon any of the Gradle's core tasks (like compileJava, classes etc), then it should not call those tasks (i.e. to mimic -x someTask behavior at command line).

The following works!!

$ gradle jacocoTestReport -x compileJava -x classes -x test -x testClasses

Then, what I want is: Running gradle myCustomTask should do the same (what the above command at command line is doing).

Error:

:compileJava UP-TO-DATE
:compileGroovy UP-TO-DATE
:processResources UP-TO-DATE
:classes UP-TO-DATE
:jacocoTestReport
:myCustomTask FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Initialization script '/home/giga/gradle-2.3/init.d/extra1.common-thids.gradle' line: 450

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':myCustomTask'.
> No such property: options for class: org.gradle.api.DefaultTask_Decorated
  Possible solutions: actions

cat -n on extra1..gradle file (init.d level file):

   449     task myCustomTask (dependsOn: [ jacocoTestReport ]) << {
   450          myCustomTask.options = [ " -x compileJava -x classes -x test -x testClasses " ]
   451     }

Answer 1

I assume this is what you want:

• Run the tests, generate a JaCoCo report and (optionally) do something with the report.
• Do something with the JaCoCo report without running the tests again.

I think your best bet is to look at mustRunAfter instead of dependsOn: https://docs.gradle.org/2.3/userguide/more_about_tasks.html#sec:ordering_tasks

task myCustomTask() {
    mustRunAfter jacocoTestReport
    doLast {
        ...
    }
}

What can you do if you switch to mustRunAfter?

Run the tests and immediatly consume the JaCoCo report. Gradle will ensure that myCustomTask runs after the JaCoCo report task, so you can be sure that your custom tasks sees the latest JaCoCo output:

gradle jacocoTestReport myCustomTask

Consume a previously generated JaCoCo report. jacocoTestReport is not a dependency of myCustomTask, so jacocoTestReport, and the tasks it depends upon, will not be added to the task graph and won't be run. Only myCustomTask will be run:

gradle myCustomTask