Our first script

In the last section, we learned how to install Gradle. Now it's time create our very first Gradle script. This script will print Hello Gradle- This is your first script on the console. Just open a text editor, type in the following three lines, and save the file as build.gradle.

task helloGradle << {
      println 'Hello Gradle- This is your first script'
}

Then execute the gradle helloGradle command as follows:

$ gradle helloGradle
:helloGradle
Hello Gradle- This is your first script
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 4.808 secs

So, what have we done here?

The Gradle command initializes the script, reads all tasks mentioned on the command-line, and executes tasks. Moreover, if any task has multiple dependencies, then dependent tasks are executed in alphabetical order unless those tasks themselves enforce the order. You can find more about task ordering in Chapter 3, Managing Task.

Remember that each Gradle build consists of three components: projects, tasks, and properties. Each build has at least one project and one or more tasks. The name of the project is the parent directory name in which the build file exists.