How to write an extension object property that does implicit conversion to FileCollection

Help/Discuss
1

I’d like to achieve what is documented in Understanding implicit conversion to file collections
for my own DSL.
I tried to look at the mentioned JavaCompile task and came up with this solution:

class ModelBeansExtension {
	final ConfigurableFileCollection modelDirs

	final Project project

	ModelBeansExtension(Project project) {
		modelDirs = project.layout.configurableFiles()
		this.project = project
	}

	void setModelDirs(FileCollection dirs) {
		this.modelDirs.setFrom(dirs)
	}
	void setModelDirs(Object dir) {
		this.modelDirs.setFrom(project.file(dir))
	}
	void setModelDirs(Object... dirs) {
		this.modelDirs.setFrom(project.files(dirs))
	}
}

This kind of works. I can use

modelBeans {
   modelDirs = 'some-path'
}

in my build script and could also supply a file or file collection to the “modelDirs” property.
However it feels wrong to store the project in the extension object. Isn’t a “project” property now also a part of my DSL?

Is there a better way?

2

You are having a rough idea of what to do, but you are evaluating too early. You might want to do the following instead.


void setModelDirs( Object dirs ) {
  this.modelDirs.clear()
  this.modelDirs.add(dirs)
}

void setModelDirs( Iterable<Object> dirs ) {
  this.modelDirs.clear()
  this.modelDirs.addAll(dirs)
}

void modelDirs( Iterable<Object> dirs ) {
  this.modelDirs.addAll(dirs)
}

void modelDirs( Object... dirs ) {
  this,.modelDirs.addAll( dirs as List )
}

FileCollection getModelDirs() {
   project.files( this.modelDirs ) 
}

private final List<Object> modelDirs = []
private final Project project

In this form you keep everything as Objects until the latest possible momemtn in time and they convert it to a FileCollection when needed.

Keep the Project instance private and iassign it only in the constructor. Now it is out of the way of the DSL.

1 Like
3

Thanks a lot for the answer. That really helps!