IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1 introduced better support for Gradle source sets. Each source set in our project becomes a module in the IntelliJ IDEA project. And each module has it's own dependencies, also between source sets. For example if we simply apply the java plugin in our project we already get two source sets: main and test. For compiling the test sources there is a dependency to the main source set. IntelliJ now knows how to handle this.

Let's create a sample Gradle build file with an extra custom source set and see what we get in IntelliJ IDEA. In the following example build file we add the source set api. This source set contains interfaces without implementations. The implementations for the interfaces are in the default main source set. Finally we have some tests in the test source set that depend on the classes generated by the api and main source sets.

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To create IntelliJ IDEA project files with Gradle we first need to apply the idea plugin. We can then further customise the created files. In this blog post we will add a Spring facet to the generated module file. By adding the Spring facet IntelliJ IDEA can automatically search for Spring configuration files. We can then use the Spring view to see which beans are configured in our project.

In the following example build file we use the withXml hook. This method is invoked just before the XML file is generated. We get an argument of type XmlProvider. From the XmlProvider we can access the XML as org.w3c.dom.Element, StringBuilder or groovy.util.Node. We use Node to alter the XML. We check if a FacetManager component is available. We need this to add a facet of type Spring.

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When we use the IDEA plugin in Gradle we can generate IntelliJ IDEA project files. We can customise the generated files in different ways. One of them is using a simple DSL to configure certain parts of the project file. With the DSL it is easy to set the version control system (VCS) used in our project.

In the next example build file we customise the generated IDEA project file and set Git as the version control system. The property is still incubating, but we can use it to have a proper configuration.

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When we run tests in IntelliJ IDEA the code is compiled by IntelliJ IDEA and the JUnit test runner is used. We get a nice graphical overview of the tasks that are executed and their results. If we use Gradle as the build tool for our project we can tell IntelliJ IDEA to always use Gradle for running tests.

We must open the Preferences or Settings dialog window. There we can search for Gradle and then look for Build, Execution, Deployment | Build Tools | Gradle | Runner:

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To quickly start with a Spring project we can use the website start.spring.io. Via a user interface we can set project properties and at the end we have a project archive (Zip or gzipped Tar file) or build file (pom.xml or build.gradle). We can also directory access an URL to create the output files and we set the properties via request parameters. This way you can share a link with someone and if they click on it they will download the generated project archive or build files.

We can choose different base URLs depending on the type of project archive we want. To get a Zip file we use http://start.spring.io/starter.zip and to get a gzipped Tar file we use http://start.spring.io/starter.tgz. To create a Gradle build file with all the configuration for a project we use http://start.spring.io/build.gradle. For a Maven POM XML file we use the URL hhttp://start.spring.io/pom.xml.

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Suppose we have a project where we use Lombok annotations. To use it we must change the compiler configuration for our project and enable annotation processing. We can find this in the Preferences or Settings window under Build, Execution, Deployment | Compiler | Annotation Processors. Here we have a checkbox Enable annotation processing that we must check to use the annotations from IntelliJ IDEA. We can automate this setting with some configuration in our Gradle build file.

In the next example build file we alter the generated IntelliJ IDEA project file using the withXml hook. We can access the generated XML as a groovy.util.Node and change the XML.

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A tuple is an ordered, immutable list of elements. Groovy has it's own groovy.lang.Tuple class. We can create an instance of a Tuple by providing all elements that need to be in the Tuple via the constructor. We cannot add new elements to a Tuple instance or remove elements. We cannot even change elements in a tuple, so it is completely immutable. This makes it very useable as return value for a method where we need to return multiple values. Groovy also provides a Tuple2 class that can be used for tuple instance of only two elements. The elements are typed in a Tuple2 instance.

In the following example we see different uses of the Tuple and Tuple2 classes:

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It has already been a week since Javaland 2016 started on Tuesday March 8th. Javaland is 3-day community driven conference in the amusement park Phantasialand in Brühl, Germany. I had the fortune to attend the conference this year and speak about Asciidoctor on the first day with my talk "Writing documentation in Asciidoctor is Awesome". The code and examples from the presentation are on Github. Also my colleague Rob Brinkman was at the conference for this talk about "Westy Tracking (turning a VW van into a Tesla)" and his presentation is online as well.

What I really liked about the conference is a lot of technical talks about all kind of Java subjects. Even for a non-German person there were a lot of talks in English to follow. Also the atmosphere was very nice, people are approachable and in between talks there was a nice community and sponsor exhibition room. The organization uses the knowledge and experience of 29 JUGs from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And then the location is also great to have a conference. The amusement park wasn't open for the public so we as Java developers had part of the park for ourselves. The location of the talks were partially in theaters and in business rooms. And at Tuesday night we were allowed to go on rides as well. (Remember: first rides, then eat and drink, if you alter the order you might get in trouble).

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We can add extensions to our project in Gradle to extend the build script with extra capabilities. Actually we can add extensions to any object in Gradle that implements the ExtensionAware interface. The Task interface for example extends the ExtensionAware interface so we can add custom extensions to Gradle tasks as well. Inside a task configuration we can then use that extension.

In the following build script we use a custom extension for JavaCompile tasks to configure the compiler -Xlint arguments. The extension is added via the plugin com.mrhaki.gradle.JavaCompilerLintPlugin. First we take a look ate the extension class. This is a POGO for configuring the compiler arguments with -Xlint options:

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When we create our own custom tasks we might need to support lazy evaluation of task properties. A Gradle build has three phases: initialisation, configuration and execution. Task properties can be set during the configuration phase, for example when a task is configured in a build file. But our task can also evaluate the value for a task property at execution time. To support evaluation during execution time we must write a lazy getter method for the property. Also we must define the task property with def or type Object. Because of the Object type we can use different types to set a value. For example a Groovy Closure or Callable interface implementation can be used to execute later than during the configuration phase of our Gradle build. Inside the getter method we invoke the Closure or Callable to get the real value of the task property.

Let's see this with a example task. We create a simple class with two task properties: user and outputFile. The user property must return a String object and the outputFile property a File object. For the outputFile property we write a getOutputFile method. We delegate to the Project.file method, which already accepts different argument types for lazy evaluation. We also write an implementation for getUser method where we run a Closure or Callable object if that is used to set the property value.

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