The Distribution Plugin facilitates building archives that serve as distributions of the project. Distribution archives typically contain the executable application and other supporting files, such as documentation.

Usage

To use the Distribution Plugin, include the following in your build script:

Example 1. Using the Distribution Plugin
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'distribution'
}

The plugin adds an extension named distributions of type DistributionContainer to the project. It also creates a single distribution in the distributions container extension named main. If your build only produces one distribution you only need to configure this distribution (or use the defaults).

You can run gradle distZip to package the main distribution as a ZIP, or gradle distTar to create a TAR file. To build both types of archives just run gradle assembleDist. The files will be created at $buildDir/distributions/${project.name}-${project.version}.«ext».

You can run gradle installDist to assemble the uncompressed distribution into $buildDir/install/${project.name}.

Tasks

The Distribution Plugin adds a number of tasks to your project, as shown below.

distZip — Zip

Creates a ZIP archive of the distribution contents.

distTar — Task

Creates a TAR archive of the distribution contents.

assembleDist — Task

Depends on: distTar, distZip

Creates ZIP and TAR archives of the distribution contents.

installDist — Sync

Assembles the distribution content and installs it on the current machine.

For each additional distribution you add to the project, the Distribution Plugin adds the following tasks, where distributionName comes from Distribution.getName():

distributionNameDistZip — Zip

Creates a ZIP archive of the distribution contents.

distributionNameDistTar — Tar

Creates a TAR archive of the distribution contents.

assembleDistributionNameDist — Task

Depends on: distributionNameDistTar, distributionNameDistZip

Creates ZIP and TAR archives of the distribution contents.

installDistributionNameDist — Sync

Assembles the distribution content and installs it on the current machine.

The following sample creates a custom distribution that will cause four additional tasks to be added to the project: customDistZip, customDistTar, assembleCustomDist, and installCustomDist:

Example 2. Adding extra distributions
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
distributions {
    custom {
        // configure custom distribution
    }
}

Given that the project name is myproject and version 1.2, running gradle customDistZip will produce a ZIP file named myproject-custom-1.2.zip.

Running gradle installCustomDist will install the distribution contents into $buildDir/install/custom.

Distribution contents

All of the files in the src/$distribution.name/dist directory will automatically be included in the distribution. You can add additional files by configuring the Distribution object that is part of the container.

Example 3. Configuring the main distribution
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
distributions {
    main {
        baseName = 'someName'
        contents {
            from 'src/readme'
        }
    }
}

In the example above, the content of the src/readme directory will be included in the distribution (along with the files in the src/main/dist directory which are added by default).

The baseName property has also been changed. This will cause the distribution archives to be created with a different name.

Publishing

A distribution can be published using the Ivy Publish Plugin or Maven Publish Plugin, or via the original publishing mechanism using the uploadArchives task.

Using the Ivy/Maven Publish Plugins

To publish a distribution to an Ivy repository with the Ivy Publish Plugin, simply add one or both of its archive tasks to an IvyPublication. The following sample demonstrates how to add the ZIP archive of the main distribution and the TAR archive of the custom distribution to the myDistribution publication:

Example 4. Adding distribution archives to an Ivy publication
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'ivy-publish'
}

publishing {
    publications {
        myDistribution(IvyPublication) {
            artifact distZip
            artifact customDistTar
        }
    }
}

Similarly, to publish a distribution to a Maven repository using the Maven Publish Plugin, add one or both of its archive tasks to a MavenPublication as follows:

Example 5. Adding distribution archives to a Maven publication
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'maven-publish'
}

publishing {
    publications {
        myDistribution(MavenPublication) {
            artifact distZip
            artifact customDistTar
        }
    }
}

Using the uploadArchives task

The Distribution Plugin adds the distribution archives as default publishing artifact candidates. With the Maven Plugin applied, the distribution ZIP file will be published when running uploadArchives if no other default artifact is configured.

Example 6. Publishing the distribution ZIP with the Maven Plugin
GroovyKotlin
build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'maven'
}

uploadArchives {
    repositories {
        mavenDeployer {
            repository(url: "file://some/repo")
        }
    }
}