What is Gradle in Android Studio

Question

Gradle is a bit confusing to me  and also for any new Android developer  Can anyone explain what Gradle in Android Studio is and what its purpose is  Why is it included in Android Studio

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Gradle is an easily customizable build system that supports building by a convention model. Gradle is written in Java, but the build language is Groovy DSL (domain spec language). Gradle not only supports multi-project builds, but it also supports dependencies like Ivy and Maven. Gradle also can support building non-Java projects.

https://medium.com/@ravirajdesai501/what-is-gradle-442458dd7ec1

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Gradle is an advanced build toolkit for android that manages dependencies and allows you to define custom build logic  features are like    Customize  configure  and extend the build process  Create multiple APKs for your app with different features using the same project  Reuse code and resources    refer

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In Android Studio  Gradle is used for building our android application projects  hence playing the role of a build system  Before Android Studio  in Eclipse we used to compile and build the applications using command line tool which was soon taken over by GUI based steps to build and run Android Applications in eclipse using ANT  Every android application development tool has to compile resources  java source code  external libraries and combine them into a final APK   Gradle is a build system  which is responsible for code compilation  testing  deployment and conversion of the code into  dex files and hence running the app on the device   As Android Studio comes with Gradle system pre-installed  there is no need to install additional runtime softwares to build our project  Whenever you click on  button in android studio  a gradle task automatically triggers and starts building the project and after gradle completes its task  app starts running in AVD or in the connected device   A build system like Gradle is not a compiler  linker etc  but it controls and supervises the operation of compilation  linking of files  running test cases  and eventually bundling the code into an apk file for your Android Application   There are two build gradle files for every android studio project of which  one is for application and other is for project level module level  build files   In the build process  the compiler takes the source code  resources  external libraries JAR files and AndroidManifest xml which contains the meta-data about the application  and convert them into  dex Dalvik Executable files  files  which includes bytecode  That bytecode is supported by all android devices to run your app  Then APK Manager combines the  dex files and all other resources into single apk file  APK Packager signs debug or release apk using respective debug or release keystore   Debug apk is generally used for testing purpose or we can say that it is used at development stage only  When your app is complete with desired features and you are ready to publish your application for external use then you require a Release apk signed using a release keystore   Now lets shed some light on the gradle files   setting gradle The setting gradle Gradle setting  file is used to specify all the modules used in your app   build gradle  project level  The Top level  module  build gradle file is project level build file  which defines build configurations at project level  This file applies configurations to all the modules in android application project   build gradle  application level  The Application level build gradle file is located in each module of the android project  This file includes your package name as applicationID  version name apk version   version code  minimum and target sdk for a specific application module  When you are including external libraries not the jar files  then you need to mention it in the app level gradle file to include them in your project as dependencies of the application   Note  If a certain application is developed in variations for individual modules like  Smart Phone  Tablet or TV then separate gradle files must to be created for all  You can even start your gradle system through command line tool  Following commands are used for it     gradlew build -  build project    gradlew clean build -  build project complete scratch    gradlew clean build -  run the test    gradlew wrapper -  to see all the available tasks

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You can find everything you need to know about Gradle here  Gradle Plugin User Guide  Goals of the new Build System The goals of the new build system are   Make it easy to reuse code and resources Make it easy to create several variants of an application  either for multi-apk distribution or for different flavors of an application Make it easy to configure  extend and customize the build process Good IDE integration  Why Gradle  Gradle is an advanced build system as well as an advanced build toolkit allowing to create custom build logic through plugins  Here are some of its features that made us choose Gradle   Domain Specific Language  DSL  to describe and manipulate the build logic Build files are Groovy based and allow mixing of declarative elements through the DSL and using code to manipulate the DSL elements to provide custom logic  Built-in dependency management through Maven and or Ivy  Very flexible  Allows using best practices but doesn   t force its own way of doing things  Plugins can expose their own DSL and their own API for build files to use  Good Tooling API allowing IDE integration

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Gradle is an automated build toolkit that can integrate into lots of different environments not only for Android projects    Here are few things that you can do with gradle    Minimal Configuration Required for New Projects because Gradle has defaults configurations for your android studio projects   Dependancy Declaration  You can declare dependency jar files or library files that is hosted in local or remote server  Gradle automatically generates a test directory and a test APK from your project s source   If you add all the necessary information  such as keyPassword and keyAlias  to your Gradle build file  you can use Gradle to generate signed APKs  Gradle can generate multiple APKs with different package and build configurations from a single module

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It s the new build tool that Google wants to use for Android  It s being used due to it being more extensible  and useful than ant  It is meant to enhance developer experience    You can view a talk by Xavier Ducrohet from the Android Developer Team on Google I O here    There is also another talk on Android Studio by Xavier and Tor Norbye  also during Google I O here

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by  Brian Gardner   Gradle is an extensive build tool and dependency manager for programming projects  It has a domain specific language based on Groovy  Gradle also provides build-by-convention support for many types of projects including Java  Android and Scala   Feature of Gradle    Dependency Management Using Ant from Gradle Gradle Plugins Java Plugin Android Plugin Multi-Project Builds

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Gradle is a build system  Build systems are software tools designed to automate the process of program compilation  Build systems come in various forms  and are used for a variety of software build tasks  While their primary goal is to efficiently create executables   Another related term is Build automation which is the process of automating the creation of a software build and the associated processes including  compiling computer source code into binary code  packaging binary code  and running automated tests   Few similar build system for other languages are  see complete list here     Apache Ant  amp  Apache Maven - Java sbt  Simple Build Tool  - for Scala  Play framework etc  A-A-P - Python based build tool Rake  Apache Builder  - Ruby Leiningen for Clojure

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Gradle is a build system running on Android Studio   In other languages for example    Ant and Maven of Java Rake of Ruby A-A-P of C NAnt of  NET Make in Linux

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Gradle is like a version of make that puts features before usability  which is why you and 433k readers can t even work out that it s a build system

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Gradle   Groovy   Cradle Hans Dockter forum comment  The confusion is a bit unnecessary when it could have just been called  Build  or something in Android Studio   We like to make things difficult for ourselves in the Development community

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Short Answer  Gradle is a build system   Long Answer  Before Android Studio you were using Eclipse for your development purposes  and  chances are  you didn t know how to build your Android APK without Eclipse   You can do this on the command line  but you have to learn what each tool  dx  aapt  does in the SDK  Eclipse saved us all from these low level but important  fundamental details by giving us their own build system   Now  have you ever wondered why the res folder is in the same directory as your src folder    This is where the build system enters the picture  The build system automatically takes all the source files   java or  xml   then applies the appropriate tool  e g  takes java class files and converts them to dex files   and groups all of them into one compressed file  our beloved APK   This build system uses some conventions  an example of one is to specify the directory containing the source files  in Eclipse it is  src folder  or resources files  in Eclipse it is  res folder    Now  in order to automate all these tasks  there has to be a script  you can write your own build system using shell scripting in linux or batch files syntax in windows  Got it   Gradle is another build system that takes the best features from other build systems and combines them into one  It is improved based off of their shortcomings  It is a JVM based build system  what that means is that you can write your own script in Java  which Android Studio makes use of   One cool thing about gradle is that it is a plugin based system  This means if you have your own programming language and you want to automate the task of building some package  output like a JAR for Java  from sources then you can write a complete plugin in Java or Groovy or Kotlin  see here   and distribute it to rest of world   Why did Google use it   Google saw one of the most advanced build systems on the market and realized that you could write scripts of your own with little to no learning curve  and without learning Groovy or any other new language  So they wrote the Android plugin for Gradle   You must have seen build gradle file s  in your project  That is where you can write scripts to automate your tasks  The code you saw in these files is Groovy code  If you write System out println  Hello Gradle     then it will print on your console   What can you do in a build script   A simple example is that you have to copy some files from one directory to another before the actual build process happens  A Gradle build script can do this

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Gradle is a build tool custom and used for building APK or known as application package kit

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Gradle is an advanced build system as well as an advanced build toolkit allowing to create custom build logic through plugins   Advantages    Dsl - Domain specific language  based on groovy DAG - Directed Acyclic Graph Incremental builds Extensible domain model Gradle is always up to date Before a task is being execute  Gradle takes a snapshot of its task   s input and output  In case the snapshot has changed or it doesn   t exists  Gralde will re- execute this task    Manifest entries  Through the DSL it is possible to configure the following manifest entries   Build variant  By default  the Android plugin automatically sets up the project to build both a debug and a release version of the application   Dependencies   Local Dependencies       If you have binary archives in your local filesystem that a module   depends on  such as JAR files  you can declare these dependencies in   the build file for that module     Remote Dependencies       First the repository must be added to the list  and then the   dependency must be declared in a way that Maven or Ivy declare their   artifacts

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In plain terms  Gradle is a tool provided by Android Studio in order to implement two important processes    Build our projects  Package AndroidManifest xml res folder and binary code into a specially formatted zip file called APK

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DEFINITION   Gradle can be described a structured building mechanism where it provides a developer the tools and flexibility to manage the resources of a project to create builds that are smaller in size  targeting specific requirements for certain devices of certain configurations     BASIC CONFIGURATIONS    minimumSdk  maximumSdk  targettedSdk  versionCode  versionName     LIBRARIES   We can add android libraries or any other third party libraries in addition as per requirements easy which was a tedious task earlier  If the library does not fit for the existing project  The developer is shown a log where the person can find a appropriate solution to make changes to the project so that the library can be added  Its just one line of dependency     GENERATING VARIETIES OF BUILDS  Combining build types with build flavours to get varities of build varients                                                                            BuildTypes                                 ProductFlavours     --------------------                         --------------------    Debug Production                            Paid Free Demo Mock                                                                                                                                          VV       VV                                                                                DebugPaid  DebugFree  DebugDemo  DebugMock                 ProductionPaid  ProductionFree  ProductionDemo  ProductionMock                                                                          REDUCING SIZE  Gradle helps in reducing the size of the generated build by removing the unused resources also unused things from integrated libraries    MANAGING PERMISSIONS   We can Specify certain permissions for certain builds by adding certain permissions in certain scenarios based on requirements    BUILDS FOR CERTAIN DEVICES  We can manage generating build for certain devices that include certain densities and certain api levels  This helps in product deployments in app store according to requirements across multiple types of devices    GOOD REFERENCE  Vogella Tutorials

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The Android Studio build system is based on Gradle  and the Android Gradle plugin adds several features that are specific to building Android apps  Although the Android plugin is typically updated in lock-step with Android Studio  the plugin  and the rest of the Gradle system  can run independent of Android Studio and be updated separately  For more details you can refer   https   developer android com studio releases gradle-plugin gclid Cj0KCQiAlZH BRCgARIsAAZHSBndmJC myjKnuCBZbe7u9nyzMjbFGES2SVvedq4nxyqdqJnqq0xxlAaAvGMEALw wcB amp gclsrc aw ds https   gradle org

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Gradle is what makes it possible to automate the building of complex Android projects that involve 10s of thousands of lines of code from multiple sources  projects  libraries  etc   It can conditionally generate multiple optimized APKs based on a plethora of configuration specifications - if you are interested  the other answers provide more details of this aspect of Gradle  However  if you re new to Android development  Gradle in 99  of cases is what stops your project from building   It is an inscrutable  complex system that effectively obfuscates the Android build process and essentially renders it unavailable to inexperienced developers  ie in order to build a simple entry-level Android App the unsuspecting newbie might need to study and understand many things that they didn t bargain for such as   Android APK structure and ecosystem Android Studio Java Classpaths and dependencies Groovy Gradle build scripts Many other complex and interesting technologies  All these things are interesting and useful for Android developers to know  but they are far from easy and present a formidable barrier to entry  I suspect that what inspired the OP to ask this question is the feeling of frustration that inevitably hits the neophyte developer after spending way too long trying to get a simple app to build and being continually thwarted by Gradle  The problem is perversely exacerbated by the overwhelming quantity of highly technical documentation that is available for all these technologies   Also for a large amount of development needs  Gradle is overkill  An alternative is to write a shell script that builds your project by automating the tools available in the Android SDK   The virtues of this approach are many  for starters  it s probably the best way to study and understand the build process and the Android ecosystem  and it allows you to completely control how your app is built   However  this approach is more suitable for deeply irredeemable tech-heads than it is to inexperienced noobs trying out android  What is conspicuous by its absence  please inform me if there is such a thing  is an entry-level  lightweight IDE with a reduced feature set that simultaneously simplifies the build process while not obscuring it  so not Netbeans or Eclipse  it could possibly still use Gradle  what was wrong with Ant    It should make it easy to generate APKs that conform to a few common configurations and use a project structure that can evolve to a full Android Studio project should you decide to take it that way

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In Android Studio  Gradle is a custom build tool used to build android packages  apk files  by managing dependencies and providing custom build logic   APK file  Android Application package  is a specially formatted zip file which contains   Byte code Resources  images  UI  xml etc  Manifest file   An apk file gets signed and pushed to the device using ADB Android Debug Bridge  where it gets executed

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Short and simple answer for that  Gradle is a build system  which is responsible for code compilation  testing  deployment and conversion of the code into   dex files and hence running the app on the device  As Android Studio comes with Gradle system pre-installed  there is no need to install additional runtime softwares to build our project

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Search Results Featured snippet from the web Android   build  gradle  Gradle is a build system  open source  which is used to automate building  testing  deployment etc      For example  the simple task to copy some files from one directory to another can be performed by Gradle build script before the actual build process happens

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At the risk of being discursive I think behind this is the question of why the Android Studio   Gradle experience is so bad    Typical Clojure experience      download project with dependencies listed in project clj  Leiningen gets the dependencies thanks to Clojars and Maven   Project compiles     Typical Android Studio   Gradle experience       Import my Eclipse project    OK project imported   Gradle is doing it s thang      wait     wait     wait     Gradle has finished   Compile     can t compile because I don t know what an X is   can t find Y library    I m not sure this is Gradle s fault exactly  But the  import from Eclipse project  seems pretty flaky  For all of Gradle s alleged sophistication and the virtues of a build-system  Android Studio just doesn t seem to import the build dependencies or build-process from Eclipse very well    It doesn t tell you when it s failed to import a complete dependency graph  The Android Studio gives no useful help or tips as to how to solve the problem  It doesn t tell you where you can manually look in the Eclipse folders  It doesn t tell you which library seems to be missing  Or help you search Maven etc  for them   In 2016 things like Leiningen   Clojars  or node s npm  or Python s pip  or the Debian apkg  and I m sure many similar package managers for other languages and systems  all work beautifully     missing dependencies are thing of the past   Except with Android  Android Studio is now the only place where I still seem to experience missing-dependency hell    I m inclined to say this is Google s fault  They broke the Android ecosystem  and thousands of existing Android projects   online tutorials  when they cavalierly decided to shift from Eclipse to Android Studio   Gradle without producing a robust conversion process  People whose projects work in Eclipse aren t adapting them to AS  presumably because it s a pain for them   And people trying to use those projects in AS are hitting the same issues   And anyway  if Gradle is this super-powerful build system  why am I still managing a whole lot of other dependencies in the sdk manager  Why can t a project that needs  say  the ndk specify this in its Gradle file so that it gets automatically installed and built-against when needed  Why is NDK special  Similarly for target platforms  Why am I installing them explicitly in the IDE rather than just checking my project against them and having this all sorted for me behind the scenes

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Gradle is one type of build tool that builds the source code of the program  So it s an important part of Android Studio  and needs to be installed before starting developing your application   We do not have to install it separately  because the Android Studio does it for us  when we make our first project

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I refer two tutorial to write the Answer one two  Gradle is a general purpose  declarative build tool  It is general purpose because it can be used to build pretty much anything you care to implement in the build script  It is declarative since you don t want to see lots of code in the build file  which is not readable and less maintainable  So  while Gradle provides the idea of conventions and a simple and declarative build  it also makes the tool adaptable and developers the ability to extend  It also provides an easy way to customize the default behavior and different hooks to add any third-party features      Gradle combines the good parts of both tools and provides additional features and uses Groovy as a Domain Specific Language  DSL   It has power and flexibility of Ant tool with Maven features such as build life cycle and ease of use    Why Gradle  Why Now   The build tool s response is to add scripting functionality through nonstandard extension mechanisms  You end up mixing scripting code with XML or invoking external scripts from your build logic  It s easy to imagine that you ll need to add more and more custom code over time  As a result  you inevitably introduce accidental complexity  and maintainability goes out the window      Let s say you want to copy a file to a specific location when you re building the release version of your project  To identify the version  you check a string in the metadata describing your project  If it matches a specific numbering scheme  for example  1 0-RELEASE   you copy the file from point A to point B  From an outside perspective  this may sound like a trivial task  If you have to rely on XML  the build language of many traditional tools  expressing this simple logic becomes fairly difficult    Evolution of Java Build Tools     Java build logic has to be described in XML  XML is great for describing hierarchical data but falls short on expressing program flow and conditional logic  As a build script grows in complexity  maintaining the building code becomes a nightmare    In Ant  you make the JAR target depend on the compile target  Ant doesn t give any guidance on how to structure your project  Though it allows for maximum flexibility  Ant makes each build script unique and hard to understand  External libraries required by your project are usually checked into version control because there is no automated mechanism to pull them from a central location   Maven 1  released in July 2004  tried to ease that process  It provided a standardized project and directory structure  as well as dependency management  Unfortunately  custom logic is hard to implement  Gradle fits right into that generation of build tools and satisfies many requirements of modern build tools  Figure 1   It provides an expressive DSL  a convention over configuration approach  and powerful dependency management  It makes the right move to abandon XML and introduce the dynamic language Groovy to define your build logic  Sounds compelling  doesn t it   Gradle combines the best features of other build tools     Gradle s Compelling Feature Set    Why Build Your Java Projects with Gradle Rather than Ant or Maven      The default build tool for Android  and the new star of build tools on the JVM  is designed to ease scripting of complex  multi-language builds  Should you change to it  though  if you re using Ant or Maven    The key to unlocking Gradle s power features within your build script lies in discovering and applying its domain model  as shown in below image    Gradle can t know all the requirements specific to your enterprise build  By exposing hooks into lifecycle phases  Gradle allows for monitoring and configuring the build script s execution behavior      Gradle establishes a vocabulary for its model by exposing a DSL implemented in Groovy  When dealing with a complex problem domain  in this case  the task of building software  being able to use a common language to express your logic can be a powerful tool        Another example is the way you can express dependencies to external libraries  a very common problem solved by build tools  Out-of-the-box Gradle provides you with two configuration blocks for your build script that allow you to define the dependencies and repositories that you want to retrieve them from  If the standard DSL elements don t fit your needs  you can even introduce your own vocabulary through Gradle s extension mechanism    Integration with Other Build Tools  Gradle plays well with its predecessors  Ant  Maven  and Ivy  as shown in the image below     Automating Your Project from Build to Deployment    In image  Stages of a deployment pipeline    Compiling the code Running unit and integration tests Performing static code analysis and generating test coverage Creating the distribution Provisioning the target environment Deploying the deliverable Performing smoke and automated functional tests   I refer two tutorial to write the Answer one two

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Gradle is to the Groovy JVM language what ant is to Java    Basically  it s Groovy s build tool   Unlike Ant  it s based on the full Groovy language   You can  for example  write Groovy script code in the Gradle script to do something rather than relying on a specific domain language     I don t know IntelliJ s specific integration  but imagine you could  extend  Groovy such that you could write specific  build  language primitives and they just became part of the Groovy language    Groovy s metaprogramming is a whole discussion unto itself     IntelliJ Google could use Gradle to build a very high-level build language  yet  it s a language build on an expandable  open standard

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Here is a detailed explanation about what Gradle is and how to use it in Android Studio   Exploring the Gradle Files   Whenever you create a project in Android Studio  the build system automatically generates all the necessary Gradle build files    Gradle Build Files   Gradle build files use a Domain Specific Language or DSL to define custom build logic and to interact with the Android-specific elements of the Android plugin for Gradle  Android Studio projects consists of 1 or more modules  which are components that you can build  test  and debug independently  Each module has its own build file  so every Android Studio project contains 2 kinds of Gradle build files  Top-Level Build File  This is where you ll find the configuration options that are common to all the modules that make up your project  Module-Level Build File  Each module has its own Gradle build file that contains module-specific build settings  You ll spend most of your time editing module-level build file s  rather than your project s top-level build file    To take a look at these build gradle files  open Android Studio s Project panel  by selecting the Project tab  and expand the Gradle Scripts folder   The first two items in the Gradle Scripts folder are the project-level and module-level Gradle build files  Top-Level Gradle Build File  Every Android Studio project contains a single  top-level Gradle build file  This build gradle file is the first item that appears in the Gradle Scripts folder and is clearly marked Project      Most of the time  you won t need to make any changes to this file  but   it s still useful to understand its contents and the role it plays   within your project    Module-Level Gradle Build Files  In addition to the project-level Gradle build file  each module has a Gradle build file of its own  Below is an annotated version of a basic  module-level Gradle build file   Other Gradle Files  In addition to the build gradle files  your Gradle Scripts folder contains some other Gradle files  Most of the time you won t have to manually edit these files as they ll update automatically when you make any relevant changes to your project  However  it s a good idea to understand the role these files play within your project   gradle-wrapper properties  Gradle Version   This file allows other people to build your code  even if they don t have Gradle installed on their machine  This file checks whether the correct version of Gradle is installed and downloads the necessary version if necessary   settings gradle  This file references all the modules that make up your project    gradle properties  Project Properties      This file contains configuration information for your entire project    It s empty by default  but you can apply a wide range of properties to   your project by adding them to this file    local properties  SDK Location   This file tells the Android Gradle plugin where it can find your Android SDK installation   Note  local properties contains information that s specific to the local installation of the Android SDK  This means that you shouldn t keep this file under source control   Suggested reading - Tutsplus Tutorial   I got clear understanding of gradle from this

[android-studio] What is Gradle in Android Studio?

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