How to easily zip files without using Zip task?

Help/Discuss
1

Hi,

because of some Zip & Copy tasks limitations, I need to zip files without using the Zip task.

I was wondering if it is somehow possible natively in Gradle (using FileTrees) in the same was as there is Copy task together with Project.copy() method.

Thanks

2

What limitations are you finding?

3
https://discuss.gradle.org/t/why-is-the-closure-in-from-method-of-copy-task-evaluated-in-config-phase?source_topic_id=23485
4

The easiest thing to do is to fall back to the ant.zip task: https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/ant.html#sec:using_ant_tasks

5

See the javadoc here which states that the files(...) methods can accept a Closure if you need to delay the evaluation. I’m guessing you can use this in a Zip or Copy task and it will only be evaluated just in time

Eg:

   FileCollection lazyFiles = files({
      FileTree allTree = files().asFileTree
      file('build/source.txt').readLines().each {
         allTree.add(fileTree(it))
      }
      return allTree
   })
   task myCopy(type: Copy, dependsOn: generateSources) {
      from lazyFiles
      into 'foo' 
   }
6

Hi Lance, late response here. FYI, in my case I am defining the zip task during applying of my plugin. And I get to know the basename of the zip later, during execution of the buildscript. setBaseName only accepts a plain string, so I cannot set it in a closure. The workaround is to call setBaseName on the task in a doFirst block. Another option is to do everything in a doLast and use project.ant.zip.