# Gradle should provide Java / Android build logs as good as old Ant system

**URL:** <https://discuss.gradle.org/t/gradle-should-provide-java-android-build-logs-as-good-as-old-ant-system/19675>\
**Category:** Bugs\
**Created:** [September 23, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://discuss.gradle.org/t/gradle-should-provide-java-android-build-logs-as-good-as-old-ant-system/19675 "2016-09-23T02:18:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![accesio](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/gradle/user_avatar/discuss.gradle.org/accesio/32/2708_2.png) [@accesio](https://discuss.gradle.org/u/accesio)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://discuss.gradle.org/t/gradle-should-provide-java-android-build-logs-as-good-as-old-ant-system/19675/1 "2016-09-23T02:18:37Z")

</div>

It is near impossible to get actually useful information about a build that can be reproduced using command line javac, aapt , dex (…etc ) commands.

Case in point , you create a simple java android project and try to build it

gradle build --info --console plain 2\>&1 | tee out.log

vi out.log

…verbage …verbage …verbage  
No mention of javac anywhere nor which files are included.

Compare this to the ant build :

[javac] Compiling 2 source files to /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes  
[javac] Using modern compiler  
[javac] Compilation arguments:  
[javac] ‘-d’  
[javac] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes’  
[javac] ‘-classpath’  
[javac] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes:/home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/tools/support/annotations.jar’  
[javac] ‘-sourcepath’  
[javac] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/src:/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/gen’  
[javac] ‘-target’  
[javac] ‘1.5’  
[javac] ‘-bootclasspath’  
[javac] ‘/home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/platforms/android-12/android.jar’  
[javac] ‘-encoding’  
[javac] ‘UTF-8’  
[javac] ‘-g’  
[javac] ‘-source’  
[javac] ‘1.5’

Another case is the Dex command.

Your logs just say  
Dexing /home/jdamon/AndroidStudioProjects/TemperatureConverter/app/build/intermediates/jacoco/jacocoagent.jar took 6.394 s

???

Yeah, Annnnnnnd how was it run ??

Compare that to the old Ant build log:

-dex:  
[dex] input: /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/bin/classes  
[dex] input: /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes.jar  
[dex] input: /home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/tools/support/annotations.jar  
[dex] input: /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/libs/scala-library.jar  
[dex] input: /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/libs/AIOUSB.jar  
[dex] Pre-Dexing /media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes.jar -\> classes-650cba5e520be68a1f08f466ec2fa157.jar  
[dx] Current OS is Linux  
[dx] Executing ‘/home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/build-tools/23.0.3/dx’ with arguments:  
[dx] ‘–dex’  
[dx] ‘–output’  
[dx] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/bin/dexedLibs/classes-650cba5e520be68a1f08f466ec2fa157.jar’  
[dx] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/com.example.foo/bin/classes.jar’  
[dx]  
[dx] The ’ characters around the executable and arguments are  
[dx] not part of the command.  
[dex] Pre-Dexing /home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/tools/support/annotations.jar -\> annotations-d4548245874597f462feb72e9304e74c.jar  
[dx] Current OS is Linux  
[dx] Executing ‘/home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/build-tools/23.0.3/dx’ with arguments:  
[dx] ‘–dex’  
[dx] ‘–output’  
[dx] ‘/media/jdamon/Development/Documents/Projects/NDK/ant\_ndk\_samples/hello-jni/bin/dexedLibs/annotations-d4548245874597f462feb72e9304e74c.jar’  
[dx] ‘/home/jdamon/Tools/android-sdk-linux/tools/support/annotations.jar’  
[dx]  
[dx] The ’ characters around the executable and arguments are  
[dx] not part of the command.

No offense, but Gradle’s log files are Terrible and filled with so much unwanted verbage that is both useless ( no actual reproducible commands ) and overly verbose for what a user wants to see in a build log.