Gradle is similar to Maven; it helps in building the applications. We need to provide all the dependency information in the build.gradle file. Spring boot also has a Gradle plugin. The Gradle plugin helps in placing all the dependencies JAR files on the classpath and finally builds into a single runnable JAR file. The runnable JAR file will have an application.java file; this class will have a public static void main() method. This class will be flagged as a runnable class.

A sample Gradle file is shown here:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone" }
    mavenLocal()
  }
  dependencies {
    classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:1.1.3.RELEASE")
  }
}

  apply plugin: 'java'
  apply plugin: 'war'
  apply plugin: 'spring-boot'
  jar {
    baseName = PacktSpringBootMVCDemo '
    version =  '1.0'
  }
  repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone" }
 ...