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13. Introduction to Maven & Gradle

11/11/21

Maven​

  • Maven builds follows a lifecycle, using phases
    • Each life cycle phase includes the ones above it
    • Plugins can customise or hook-in to the phases

Key Maven lifecyles:

  • Default - your normal life-cycle
  • Clean - issued during the mvn cleanup command
  • Site - issued during the mvn site command

POM file​

  • Project Object Model (POM)
  • Contains configuration information about your project

Useful Maven Commands​

  • mvn clean - removes file in target
  • mvn compile - compiles a project
  • mvn test - Runs all tests in the src/test directory
  • mvn package - builds the final target artefact
  • mvn install - Installs the target artefact in your local repository
  • mvn deploy - deploys the artefact

Gradle​

  • Replaces XML in favour of a domain specific language 'groovy'
  • Based on a programming language therefore can implement control flow
  • Even tho it uses groovy, can act as a build manager for any language
  • Has plugin ability
  • More cleanly accomplishes required tasks of a typical development project, from compilation through testing and development

Build Cycle​

  • Launches a new JVM process
  • Creates a settings instance for the build
  • Evaluates the settings.gradle file against the settings object
  • Creates a hierarchy of projects based on the config settings object
  • Executes each build.gradle file against its project