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<chapter id='multi_project_builds' xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
    <title>Multi-project Builds</title>
    <para>The powerful support for multi-project builds is one of Gradle's unique selling points. This topic is also the
        most intellectually challenging.
    </para>
    <section id='sec:cross_project_configuration'>
        <title>Cross project configuration</title>
        <para>Let's start with a very simple multi-project build. After all Gradle is a general purpose build tool at
            its core, so the projects don't have to be java projects. Our first examples are about marine life.
        </para>
        <section>
            <title>Defining common behavior</title>
            <para>We have the following project tree. This is a multi-project build with a root project
                <literal>water</literal> and a subproject <literal>bluewhale</literal>.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectFirstExample" dir="userguide/multiproject/firstExample/water" includeLocation="true" title="Multi-project tree - water &amp; bluewhale projects">
                <layout>
                    build.gradle
                    settings.gradle
                    bluewhale/
                </layout>
                <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
            </sample>
            <para>And where is the build script for the <literal>bluewhale</literal> project? In Gradle build scripts are optional.
                Obviously for a single project build, a project without a build script doesn't make much sense. For
                multiproject builds the situation is different. Let's look at the build script for the <literal>water</literal> project and
                execute it:
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectFirstExample" dir="userguide/multiproject/firstExample/water" title="Build script of water (parent) project">
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q hello"/>
            </sample>
            <para>Gradle allows you to access any project of the multi-project build from any build script. The Project
                API provides a method called <literal>project()</literal>, which takes a path as an argument and returns
                the Project object for this path. The capability to configure a project build from any build script we
                call <firstterm>cross project configuration</firstterm>. Gradle implements this via
                <firstterm>configuration injection</firstterm>.
            </para>
            <para>We are not that happy with the build script of the <literal>water</literal>  project. It is inconvenient to add the task
                explicitly for every project. We can do better. Let's first add another project called
                <literal>krill</literal> to our multi-project build.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectAddKrill" dir="userguide/multiproject/addKrill/water" includeLocation="true" title="Multi-project tree - water, bluewhale  &amp; krill projects">
                <layout>
                    build.gradle
                    settings.gradle
                    bluewhale/
                    krill/
                </layout>
                <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
            </sample>
            <para>Now we rewrite the <literal>water</literal> build script and boil it down to a single line.</para>
            <sample id="multiprojectAddKrill" dir="userguide/multiproject/addKrill/water" title="Water project build script">
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q hello"/>
            </sample>
            <para>Is this cool or is this cool? And how does this work? The Project API provides a property
                <literal>allprojects</literal>
                which returns a list with the current project and all its subprojects underneath it. If you call
                <literal>allprojects</literal>
                with a closure, the statements of the closure are delegated to the projects associated with <literal>
                    allprojects</literal>. You could also do an iteration via <literal>allprojects.each</literal>, but
                that would be more verbose.
            </para>
            <para>Other build systems use inheritance as the primary means for defining common behavior. We also offer
                inheritance for projects as you will see later. But Gradle uses configuration injection as the usual way
                of defining common behavior. We think it provides a very powerful and flexible way of configuring
                multiproject builds.
            </para>
        </section>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:subproject_configuration'>
        <title>Subproject configuration</title>
        <para>The Project API also provides a property for accessing the subprojects only.
        </para>
        <section>
            <title>Defining common behavior</title>
            <sample id="multiprojectUseSubprojects" dir="userguide/multiproject/useSubprojects/water" title="Defining common behaviour of all projects and subprojects">
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q hello"/>
            </sample>
        </section>
        <section id='sub:adding_specific_behavior'>
            <title>Adding specific behavior</title>
            <para>You can add specific behavior on top of the common behavior. Usually we put the project specific
                behavior in the build script of the project where we want to apply this specific behavior. But as we
                have already seen, we don't have to do it this way. We could add project specific behavior for the
                <literal>bluewhale</literal> project like this:
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectSubprojectsAddFromTop" dir="userguide/multiproject/subprojectsAddFromTop/water" title="Defining specific behaviour for particular project">
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q hello"/>
            </sample>
            <para>As we have said, we usually prefer to put project specific behavior into the build script of this
                project. Let's refactor and also add some project specific behavior to the <literal>krill</literal>
                project.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectSpreadSpecifics" dir="userguide/multiproject/spreadSpecifics/water" includeLocation="true" title="Defining specific behaviour for project krill">
                <layout>
                    build.gradle
                    settings.gradle
                    bluewhale/build.gradle
                    krill/build.gradle
                </layout>
                <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                <sourcefile file="bluewhale/build.gradle"/>
                <sourcefile file="krill/build.gradle"/>
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q hello"/>
            </sample>
        </section>
        <section id='sub:project_filtering'>
            <title>Project filtering</title>
            <para>To show more of the power of configuration injection, let's add another project
                called <literal>tropicalFish</literal> and add more behavior to the build via the build script of the
                <literal>water</literal> project.
            </para>
            <section id='ssub:filtering_by_name'>
                <title>Filtering by name</title>
                <sample id="multiprojectAddTropical" dir="userguide/multiproject/addTropical/water" includeLocation="true" title="Adding custom behaviour to some projects (filtered by project name)">
                    <layout>
                        build.gradle
                        settings.gradle
                        bluewhale/build.gradle
                        krill/build.gradle
                        tropicalFish/
                    </layout>
                    <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q hello"/>
                </sample>
                <para>The <literal>configure()</literal> method takes a list as an argument and applies the
                    configuration to the projects in this list.
                </para>
            </section>
            <section id='ssub:filtering_by_properties'>
                <title>Filtering by properties</title>
                <para>Using the project name for filtering is one option. Using dynamic project properties is another.
                </para>
                <sample id="multiprojectTropicalWithProperties" dir="userguide/multiproject/tropicalWithProperties/water" includeLocation="true" title="Adding custom behaviour to some projects (filtered by project properties)">
                    <layout>
                        build.gradle
                        settings.gradle
                        bluewhale/build.gradle
                        krill/build.gradle
                        tropicalFish/build.gradle
                    </layout>
                    <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="bluewhale/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="krill/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="tropicalFish/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q hello"/>
                </sample>
                <para>In the build file of the <literal>water</literal> project we use an <literal>afterEvaluate</literal>
                    notification. This means that the closure we are passing gets evaluated <emphasis>after</emphasis>
                    the build scripts of the subproject are evaluated. As the property <literal>arctic</literal>
                    is set in those build scripts, we have to do it this way. You will find more on this topic in
                    <xref linkend='sec:dependencies_which_dependencies'/>
                </para>
            </section>
        </section>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:execution_rules_for_multi_project_builds'>
        <title>Execution rules for multi-project builds</title>
        <para>When we have executed the <literal>hello</literal> task from the root project dir things behaved in an
            intuitive way. All the <literal>hello</literal> tasks of the different projects were executed. Let's switch
            to the <literal>bluewhale</literal> dir and see what happens if we execute Gradle from there.
        </para>
        <sample id="multiprojectSubBuild" dir="userguide/multiproject/tropicalWithProperties/water/bluewhale" title="Running build from subproject">
           <output args='-q hello'/>
        </sample>
        <para>The basic rule behind Gradle's behavior is simple. Gradle looks down the hierarchy, starting with the
            <emphasis>current dir</emphasis>, for tasks with the name
            <literal>hello</literal>
            an executes them. One thing is very important to note. Gradle
            <emphasis>always</emphasis>
            evaluates
            <emphasis>every</emphasis>
            project of the multi-project build and creates all existing task objects. Then, according to the task name
            arguments and the current dir, Gradle filters the tasks which should be executed. Because of Gradle's
            cross project configuration <emphasis>every</emphasis> project has to be evaluated before <emphasis>any</emphasis>
            task gets executed. We will have a closer look at this in the next section. Let's now have our last marine
            example. Let's add a task to <literal>bluewhale</literal> and <literal>krill</literal>.
        </para>
        <sample id="multiprojectPartialTasks" dir="userguide/multiproject/partialTasks/water" title="Evaluation and execution of projects">
            <sourcefile file="bluewhale/build.gradle"/>
            <sourcefile file="krill/build.gradle"/>
            <output args="-q distanceToIceberg"/>
        </sample>
        <para>Here the output without the <literal>-q</literal> option:</para>
        <sample id="multiprojectPartialTasksNotQuiet" dir="userguide/multiproject/partialTasks/water" title="Evaluation and execution of projects">
            <output args="distanceToIceberg"/>
        </sample>
        <para>The build is executed from the <literal>water</literal> project. Neither <literal>water</literal> nor
            <literal>tropicalFish</literal> have a task with the name <literal>distanceToIceberg</literal>. Gradle does
            not care. The simple rule mentioned already above is: Execute all tasks down the hierarchy which have this
            name. Only complain if there is <emphasis>no</emphasis> such task!
        </para>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:running_partial_build_from_the_root'>
        <title>Running tasks by their absolute path</title>
        <para>As we have seen, you can run a multi-project build by entering any subproject dir and execute the build
            from there. All matching task names of the project hierarchy starting with the current dir are executed. But
            Gradle also offers to execute tasks by their absolute path (see also <xref linkend='sec:project_and_task_paths'/>):
        </para>
        <sample id="multiprojectAbsoluteTaskPaths" dir="userguide/multiproject/tropicalWithProperties/water/tropicalFish" title="Running tasks by their absolute path">
            <output args="-q :hello :krill:hello hello"/>
        </sample>
        <para>The build is executed from the <literal>tropicalFish</literal> project. We execute the <literal>hello</literal>
            tasks of the <literal>water</literal>, the <literal>krill</literal> and the <literal>tropicalFish</literal>
            project. The first two tasks are specified by there absolute path, the last task is executed on the name
            matching mechanism described above.
        </para>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:project_and_task_paths'>
        <title>Project and task paths</title>
        <para>A project path has the following pattern: It starts always with a colon, which denotes the root project.
            The root project is the only project in a path that is not specified by its name. The path
            <literal>:bluewhale</literal>
            corresponds to the file system path
            <literal>water/bluewhale</literal>
            in the case of the example above.
        </para>
        <para>The path of a task is simply its project path plus the task name. For example <literal>
            :bluewhale:hello</literal>. Within a project you can address a task of the same project just by its name.
            This is interpreted as a relative path.
        </para>
        <para>Originally Gradle has used the
            <literal>'/'</literal>
            character as a natural path separator. With the introduction of directory tasks (see <xref
                    linkend='sec:directory_creation'/>) this was no longer possible, as the name of the directory task
            contains the
            <literal>'/'</literal>
            character.
        </para>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:dependencies_which_dependencies'>
        <title>Dependencies - Which dependencies?</title>
        <para>The examples from the last section were special, as the projects had no <emphasis>Execution
            Dependencies</emphasis>. They had only <emphasis>Configuration Dependencies</emphasis>. Here is an example
            where this is different:
        </para>
        <section id='sub:execution_time_dependencies'>
            <title>Execution dependencies</title>
            <section id='ssub:dependencies_and_execution_order'>
                <title>Dependencies and execution order</title>
                <sample id="multiprojectFirstMessages" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/firstMessages/messages" includeLocation="true" title="Dependencies and execution order">
                    <layout>
                        settings.gradle
                        consumer/build.gradle
                        producer/build.gradle
                    </layout>
                    <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="producer/build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q action"/>
                </sample>
                <para>This did not work out. If nothing else is defined, Gradle executes the task in alphanumeric order.
                    Therefore
                    <literal>:consumer:action</literal>
                    is executed before <literal>:producer:action</literal>. Let's try to solve this with a hack and
                    rename the producer project to <literal>aProducer</literal>.
                </para>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesHack" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesHack/messages" title="Dependencies and execution order">
                    <layout>
                        settings.gradle
                        aProducer/build.gradle
                        consumer/build.gradle
                    </layout>
                    <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="aProducer/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q action"/>
                </sample>
                <para>Now we take the air out of this hack. We simply switch to the <literal>consumer</literal> dir and
                    execute the build.
                </para>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesHackBroken" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesHack/messages/consumer" title="Dependencies and execution order">
                    <output args="-q action"/>
                </sample>
                <para>For Gradle the two
                    <literal>action</literal>
                    tasks are just not related. If you execute the build from the
                    <literal>messages</literal>
                    project Gradle executes them both because they have the same name and they are down the hierarchy.
                    In the last example only one
                    <literal>action</literal>
                    was down the hierarchy and therefore it was the only task that got executed. We need something
                    better than this hack.
                </para>
            </section>
            <section id='ssub:declaring_dependencies'>
                <title>Declaring dependencies</title>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesDependencies" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesWithDependencies/messages" includeLocation="true" title="Declaring dependencies">
                    <layout>
                        settings.gradle
                        consumer/build.gradle
                        producer/build.gradle
                    </layout>
                    <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="producer/build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q action"/>
                </sample>
                <para>Running this from the <literal>consumer</literal> directory gives:</para>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesDependenciesSubBuild" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesWithDependencies/messages/consumer" title="Declaring dependencies">
                    <output args="-q action"/>
                </sample>
                <para>We have now declared that the
                    <literal>consumer</literal>
                    project has an
                    <emphasis>execution dependency</emphasis>
                    on the
                    <literal>producer</literal>
                    project. For Gradle declaring
                    <emphasis>execution dependencies</emphasis>
                    between
                    <emphasis>projects</emphasis>
                    is syntactic sugar. Under the hood Gradle creates task dependencies out of them. You can also create
                    cross project tasks dependencies manually by using the absolute path of the tasks.
                </para>
            </section>
            <section id='ssub:the_nature_of_project_dependencies'>
                <title>The nature of project dependencies</title>
                <para>Let's change the naming of our tasks and execute the build.
                </para>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesDifferentTaskNames" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesDifferentTaskNames/messages" title="Project execution dependencies">
                    <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="producer/build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q consume"/>
                </sample>
                <para>Oops. Why does this not work? The
                    <literal>dependsOn</literal>
                    command is created for projects with a common lifecycle. Provided you have two Java projects where
                    one depends on the other. If you trigger a compile for the dependent project you don't want that
                    <emphasis>all</emphasis>
                    tasks of the other project get executed. Therefore a
                    <literal>dependsOn</literal>
                    creates dependencies between tasks with equal names. To deal with the scenario above you would do
                    the following:
                </para>
                <sample id="multiprojectMessagesTaskDependencies" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesTaskDependencies/messages" title="Cross project task dependencies">
                    <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                    <sourcefile file="producer/build.gradle"/>
                    <output args="-q consume"/>
                </sample>
            </section>
        </section>
        <section id='sub:configuration_time_dependencies'>
            <title>Configuration time dependencies</title>
            <para>Let's have one more example with our producer-consumer build before we enter
                <emphasis>Java</emphasis>
                land. We add a property to the producer project and create now a configuration time dependency from
                consumer on producer.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectMessagesConfigDependenciesBroken" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesConfigDependenciesBroken/messages" title="Configuration time dependencies">
                <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                <sourcefile file="producer/build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q consume"/>
            </sample>
            <para>The default
                <emphasis>evaluation</emphasis>
                order of the projects is alphanumeric (for the same nesting level). Therefore the
                <literal>consumer</literal>
                project is evaluated before the
                <literal>producer</literal>
                project and the
                <literal>key</literal>
                value of the
                <literal>producer</literal>
                is set
                <emphasis>after</emphasis>
                it is read by the
                <literal>consumer</literal>
                project. Gradle offers a solution for this.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectMessagesConfigDependencies" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesConfigDependencies/messages" title="Configuration time dependencies - evaluationDependsOn">
                <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q consume"/>
            </sample>
            <para>The command
                <literal>evaluationDependsOn</literal>
                triggers the evaluation of
                <literal>producer</literal>
                <emphasis>before</emphasis>
                <literal>consumer</literal>
                is evaluated. The example is a bit contrived for the sake of showing the mechanism. In
                <emphasis>this</emphasis>
                case there would be an easier solution by reading the key property at execution time.
            </para>
            <sample id="multiprojectMessagesConfigDependenciesAltSolution" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/messagesConfigDependenciesAltSolution/messages" title="Configuration time dependencies">
                <sourcefile file="consumer/build.gradle"/>
                <output args="-q consume"/>
            </sample>
            <para>Configuration dependencies are very different to execution dependencies. Configuration dependencies
                are between projects whereas execution dependencies are always resolved to task dependencies. Another
                difference is that always all projects are configured, even when you start the build from a subproject.
                The default configuration order is top down, which is usually what is needed.
            </para>
            <para>On the same nesting level the configuration order depends on the alphanumeric position. The most
                common use case is to have multi-project builds that share a common lifecycle (e.g. all projects use the
                Java plugin). If you declare with
                <literal>dependsOn</literal>
                a
                <emphasis>execution dependency</emphasis>
                between different projects, the default behavior of this method is to create also a
                <emphasis>configuration</emphasis>
                dependency between the two projects. Therefore it is likely that you don't have to define configuration
                dependencies explicitly.
            </para>
        </section>
        <section id='sub:real_life_examples'>
            <title>Real life examples</title>
            <para>Gradle's multi-project features are driven by real life use cases. The first example for describing
                such a use case, consists of two webapplication projects and a parent project that creates a
                distribution out of them.
                <footnote>
                    <para>The real use case we had, was using <ulink url='http://lucene.apache.org/solr'/>, where you
                        need a separate war for each index your are accessing. That was one reason why we have created a
                        distribution of webapps. The Resin servlet container allows us, to let such a distribution point
                        to a base installation of the servlet container.
                    </para>
                </footnote>
                For the example we use only one build script and do <emphasis>cross project configuration</emphasis>.
            </para>
            <sample id="webdist" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/webDist" includeLocation="true" title="Dependencies - real life example - crossproject configuration">
                <layout>
                    settings.gradle
                    build.gradle
                    date/
                    date/src/main/java/
                    date/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/DateServlet.java
                    hello/
                    hello/src/main/java/
                    hello/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/HelloServlet.java
                </layout>
                <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
                <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
            </sample>
            <para>We have an interesting set of dependencies. Obviously the
                <literal>date</literal>
                and
                <literal>hello</literal>
                projects have a
                <emphasis>configuration</emphasis>
                dependency on <literal>webDist</literal>, as all the build logic for the webapp projects is injected by
                <literal>webDist</literal>. The
                <emphasis>execution</emphasis>
                dependency is in the other direction, as
                <literal>webDist</literal>
                depends on the build artifacts of
                <literal>date</literal>
                and <literal>hello</literal>. There is even a third dependency.
                <literal>webDist</literal>
                has a
                <emphasis>configuration</emphasis>
                dependency on
                <literal>date</literal>
                and
                <literal>hello</literal>
                because it needs to know the <literal>archivePath</literal>. But it asks for this information at
                <emphasis>execution time</emphasis>. Therefore we have no circular dependency.
            </para>
            <para>Such and other dependency patterns are daily bread in the problem space of multi-project builds. If a
                build system does not support such patterns, you either can't solve your problem or you need to do ugly
                hacks which are hard to maintain and massively afflict your productivity as a build master.
            </para>
            <para>There is one more thing to note from the current example. We have used the command <literal>
                dependsOnChildren()</literal>. It is a convenience method and calls the
                <literal>dependsOn</literal>
                method of the parent project for every child project (not every sub project). It declares a
                <literal>execution</literal>
                dependency of
                <literal>webDist</literal>
                on
                <literal>date</literal>
                and <literal>hello</literal>.
            </para>
            <para>Another use case would be a situation where the subprojects have a configuration
                <emphasis>and</emphasis>
                execution dependency on the parent project. This is the case when the parent project does configuration
                injection into its subprojects, and additionally produces something at execution time that is needed by
                its child projects (e.g. code generation). In this case the parent project would call the
                <literal>childrenDependOnMe</literal>
                method to create an execution dependency for the child projects. We might add an example for this in a
                future version of the user guide.
            </para>
        </section>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:project_jar_dependencies'>
        <title>Project lib dependencies</title>
        <para>What if one projects needs the jar produced by another project in its compile path? And not just the jar
            but also the transitive dependencies of this jar? Obviously this is a very common use case for Java
            multi-project builds. As already mentioned in <xref linkend='sub:project_dependencies'/>, Gradle
            offers project lib dependencies for this.
        </para>
        <sample id="javadependencies_1" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" includeLocation="true" title="Project lib dependencies">
            <layout>
                settings.gradle
                build.gradle
                api/
                api/src/main/java/
                api/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/api/Person.java
                api/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/apiImpl/PersonImpl.java
                services/personService/
                services/personService/src/main/java/
                services/personService/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/services/PersonService.java
                services/personService/src/test/java/
                services/personService/src/test/java/org/gradle/sample/services/PersonServiceTest.java
                shared/
                shared/src/main/java/
                shared/src/main/java/org/gradle/sample/shared/Helper.java
            </layout>
        </sample>
        <para>We have the projects <literal>shared</literal>, <literal>api</literal> and<literal>personService</literal>.
            <literal>personService</literal> has a lib dependency on the other two projects. <literal>api</literal>
            has a lib dependency on <literal>shared</literal>.
            <footnote>
                <para>
                    <literal>services</literal>
                    is also a project, but we use it just as a container. It has no build script and gets nothing
                    injected by another build script.
                </para>
            </footnote>
        </para>
        <sample id="javadependencies_2" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" title="Project lib dependencies">
            <sourcefile file="settings.gradle"/>
            <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
        </sample>
        <para>All the build logic is in the
            <literal>build.gradle</literal> of the root project.
            <footnote>
                <para>We do this here, as it makes the layout a bit easier. We usually put the project specific stuff
                    into the build script of the respective projects.
                </para>
            </footnote>
            A <emphasis>lib</emphasis>
            dependency is a special form of an execution dependency. It causes the other project to be built first and
            adds the jar with the classes of the other project to the classpath. It also adds the dependencies of the
            other project to the classpath. So you can enter the
            <literal>api</literal>
            directory and trigger a <userinput>gradle compile</userinput>. First
            <literal>shared</literal>
            is built and then
            <literal>api</literal>
            is built. Project dependencies enable partial multi-project builds.
        </para>
        <para>If you come from Maven land you might be perfectly happy with this. If you come from Ivy land, you might
            expect some more fine grained control. Gradle offers this to you:
        </para>
        <sample id="javaWithCustomConf" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/javaWithCustomConf" title="Fine grained control over dependencies">
            <sourcefile file="build.gradle"/>
        </sample>
        <para>The Java plugin adds per default a jar to your project libraries which contains all the classes. In this
            example we create an
            <emphasis>additional</emphasis>
            library containing only the interfaces of the
            <literal>api</literal>
            project. We assign this library to a new <emphasis>dependency configuration</emphasis>. For the person
            service we declare that the project should be compiled only against the
            <literal>api</literal>
            interfaces but tested with all classes from <literal>api</literal>.
        </para>
        <section id="disable_dependency_projects">
            <title>Disabling the build of dependency projects</title>
            <para>Sometimes you don't want depended on projects to be built when doing a partial build.
                To disable the build of the depended on projects you can run gradle with the <code>-a</code> option.
            </para>
        </section>
    </section>
    <section id="sec:multiproject_build_and_test">
        <title>Multi-Project Building and Testing</title>
        <para>The <literal>build</literal> task of the Java plugin is typically used to compile, test, and perform
            code style checks (if the CodeQuality plugin is used) of a single project.  In multi-project builds
            you may often want to do all of these tasks across a range of projects.  The <literal>buildNeeded</literal>
            and <literal>buildDependents</literal> tasks can help with this.
        </para>
        <para>Let's use the project structure shown in <xref linkend='javadependencies_2'/>.  In this
            example :services:personservice depends on both :api and :shared.  The :api project also depends on
            :shared.
        </para>
        <para>Assume you are working on a single project, the :api project.  You have been making changes, but
            have not built the entire project since performing a clean.  You want to build any necessary supporting
            jars, but only perform code quality and unit tests on the project you have changed.
            The <literal>build</literal> task does this.
        </para>
        <sample id="multitestingBuild" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" title="Build and Test Single Project">
            <output args=":api:build"/>
        </sample>

        <para>While you are working in a typical development cycle repeatedly building and testing changes to
            the :api project (knowing that you are only changing files in this one project), you may not want to
            even suffer the expense of :shared:compile checking to see what has changed in the :shared project.
            Adding the <literal>-a</literal> option will cause gradle to use cached jars to resolve any project lib
            dependencies and not try to re-build the depended on projects.
        </para>
        <sample id="multitestingBuildDashA" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" title="Partial Build and Test Single Project">
            <test args=":shared:assemble"/>
            <output args="-a :api:build"/>
        </sample>

        <para>If you have just gotten the latest version of source from your version control system which included changes
            in other projects that :api depends on, you might want to not only build all the projects you depend on,
            but test them as well. The <literal>buildNeeded</literal> task also tests all the projects from the
            project lib dependencies of the testRuntime configuration.
        </para>
        <sample id="multitestingBuildNeeded" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" title="Build and Test Depended On Projects">
            <output args=":api:buildNeeded"/>
        </sample>

        <para>You also might want to refactor some part of the :api project that is used in other projects.
            If you make these types of changes, it is not sufficient to test just the :api
            project, you also need to test all projects that depend on the :api project.
            The <literal>buildDependents</literal> task also tests all the projects that have a project lib dependency
            (in the testRuntime configuration) on the specified project.
        </para>
        <sample id="multitestingBuildDependents" dir="userguide/multiproject/dependencies/java" title="Build and Test Dependent Projects">
            <output args=":api:buildDependents"/>
        </sample>
        <para>Finally, you may want to build and test everything in all projects.  If the root project has declared
        <literal>dependsOnChildren()</literal> (as this one does), then any task you run against the root project
        will cause that same named task to be run on all the children.  So you can just run
        <literal>gradle build</literal> to build and test all projects.
        </para>
    </section>
    <section id='sec:property_and_method_inheritance'>
        <title>Property and method inheritance</title>
        <para>Properties and methods declared in a project are inherited to all its subprojects. This is an alternative
            to configuration injection. But we think that the model of inheritance does not reflect the problem space of
            multi-project builds very well. In a future edition of this user guide we might write more about this.
        </para>
        <para>Method inheritance might be interesting to use as Gradle's
            <emphasis>Configuration Injection</emphasis>
            does not support methods yet (but will in a future release).
        </para>
        <para>You might be wondering why we have implemented a feature we obviously don't like that much. One reason is
            that it is offered by other tools and we want to have the check mark in a feature comparison :). And we like
            to offer our users a choice.
        </para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>Summary</title>
        <para>Writing this chapter was pretty exhausting and reading it might have a similar effect. Our final message
            for this chapter is that multi-project builds with Gradle are usually
            <emphasis>not</emphasis>
            difficult. There are six elements you need to remember: <literal>allprojects</literal>, <literal>
            subprojects</literal>, <literal>dependsOn</literal>, <literal>childrenDependOnMe</literal>,
            <literal>dependsOnChildren</literal>
            and project lib dependencies.
            <footnote>
                <para>So we are well in the range of the
                    <ulink url='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two'>7 plus 2
                        Rule
                    </ulink>
                    :)
                </para>
            </footnote>
            With those elements, and keeping in mind that Gradle has a distinct configuration and execution phase, you
            have already a lot of flexibility. But when you enter steep territory Gradle does not become an obstacle and
            usually accompanies and carries you to the top of the mountain.
        </para>
    </section>
</chapter>
