How do I specify the resources folder in a Jar?

Help/Discuss
1

I am converting a project from ant to gradle. The ant project puts resources in to a resources folder in the jar. I want to do the same in gradle.

This is the project structure

project
+-- sources
+-- resources
    +-- config.properties
+-- test

This is the source sets

sourceSets {
    main {
        java {
            srcDir 'source'
        }
        resources {
            srcDir 'resources'
            include 'config.properties'
        }
    }
    test {
        java {
            srcDir 'test'
        }
    }
}

The resulting jar looks like this

project.jar
+-- com
+-- META-INF
+-- config.properties

I need the resulting jar to put config.properties in resources

project.jar
+-- com
+-- META-INF
+-- resources
    +-- config.properties

I was hoping that by adding an into under the include I could get what I want but that did not work. Is there any simple way to specify the folder resources go into when my project is built? I tried the output.resourcesDir but that only changed the location in the buildDir not the jar. I’m hoping for a simple feature that does this. I’m currently using gradle 2.4 but hope to upgrade to 2.12 soon.

2

The simplest solution would be to make another nested resources folder and move the existing prop files. Eg:

project
+-- sources
+-- resources
    +-- resources
        +-- config.properties

This would mean that you could interchangably put either the jar file or the (top level) resources folder on the classpath without issues (eg test cases)

3

Remove the resources block and just configure the jar task appropriately:

jar {
  into 'resources', {
    from 'resources'
  }
}
4

Lance_Java, That is not possible right now. We are trying to replace a legacy ant build and that would break it.

Schalk_Cronje, I will try that and let you know.

5

Hey this worked great. Thanks for the tip!

6

Hi,
I have the same issue here, can you please help to understand what goes wrong with my build file reported below?
I am using Gradle 5.2.1
Thanks a lot

plugins {
    id 'java'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

sourceSets {
    main {
        java {
            srcDirs = ['src']
        }
    }

    test {
        java {
            srcDirs = ['test']
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile 'commons-logging:commons-logging:1.1.3'
    compile 'org.jetbrains:annotations:13.0'
    testImplementation 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-api:5.5.2'
    testRuntimeOnly 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-engine:5.5.2'
}

jar {
    into 'resources', {
        from 'resources'
    }
}

test {
    useJUnitPlatform()
}
7

What are you seeing?

8

Thank you! Simply the resources are located at the root level of my jar package while I was expecting them grouped in a “resource” directory.
Should I also manually manage the copy of those resources in the build directory with a custom copy task?

9

A custom copy task as the one reported below is in fact able to solve the issue and I have obtained what I expected described in my previous post. Anyway, for the sake of completeness, I will be grateful if someone can explain:

  1. does Gradle in default config package resources at root level of the jar file or I can suppose that there is still something inusual in my setup?
  2. there is any philosophical reason to package all the resources at root level of a jar?

Can someone point to a relevant documentation, please?
Thank you

task copyResources(type: Copy) {
    from "${projectDir}/src/main/resources"
    into "${buildDir}/classes/java/main/resources"
}
processResources.dependsOn copyResources
10

Maybe you should fix this jar task to be

jar {
    from 'resources', {
        into 'resources'
    }
}```