Template-ize output file

[sgoings]

After our conversation today on how to control the various styles of properties files people want (along with the flexibility of property naming) I realized one option might be to convert the handling of what the properties file looks like via template. That way we could have a straight Java properties file, but we could also generate other types of files (to be easily read in by other languages) as well.

We could provide a default style of properties file that could be extended, but offer users a great amount of flexibility by heading down this route.

For example:

• we could tie into filling out jar/war manifests if the java or war plugin(s) are applied
• we could provide more properties (assuming fast process/access time) than people really want to place into files

Thoughts?

[mgodwin]

How would this work? You provide a template path? I really want to keep it customizable as much as humanly possible in the gradle file.

I think it'd be awesome to allow configuration via extension like so:

project-info {
  keys {
    projectName = "newProjectNameKey"
    branch = "newBranchKey"
  }
  additional-properties {
    buildOs = "OSX"
    compileDeps = configurations.compile.toString() 
    // Not really sure if we could define properties like this on a custom extension, 
    // since extensions just map the closure back to the object...
  }
}

Would something like that work? I think if this isn't doable a template is a good option, or allowing both is a good option.

Just for added clarity, the generated properties file would look like this then

REVISION=1212abcdefg
newProjectNameKey=theProjectName
newBranchKey=refs/heads/master
VERSION=1.0.0
buildOs=OSX
compileDeps=really long string...

[sgoings]

I like your direction.

I came across this plugin, which might give you some ideas too: https://github.com/hierynomus/license-gradle-plugin

Some things to consider with the design highlighted above:

• don't limit yourself to only generating one properties file with your plugin (you're doing this by defining properties in the project-info extension, not defining this type of action in each task)... -- furthermore... use the extension object for properties that need to be shared across tasks/in the project itself, etc.
• groovy's pretty awesome in that you could define all your properties in one place (there's really no reason for the separate keys/additional-properties closure)